I ran Deception for the last two weekends and mostly settled on the card choices. The deck is pretty fun to play, copying your opponent's cards, generating tons of random cards, and removing your opponent's threats with your cheap cards. It has a flexible playstyle, playing for either tempo or value, then finishing off the opponent with hidden creatures. I went 20/25 this week, mostly losing to bad luck going second in the mirror, Pyramid Warden being a bad card giving my opponent a 20% Giant Pangolin to clear my board and put me in lethal, and facing Board Wipe Death.
I like to call this deck Tempo Deception since it is similar to Tempo Magic in mana curve and playstyle. Both decks run a majority of 1 and 2 drops and cap out at 5 or 6 mana. They both have cheap creatures to get tempo early, removal to set your opponent back, value generators to gain card advantage, and reach to close out the game. You have less card draw and removal than Tempo Magic but you have much better creatures.
Order Deception is slower and runs more order cards like Shackled Acolyte and Lantern-Bound Fae to generate value and grind out your opponent.
This deck is similar to the Order Deception Deck I ran last weekend ranked and wrote about in my Deception Deck Breakdown.
I've been on the fence on some cards and what strategy to focus on more. I sped up the deck by changing out some of the slower cards for more proactive cards: Shackled Acolyte, Counterfeit, Shade Walker, and Lantern-Bound Fae for Ransom, Uncanny Rogue, and Reflection Elementalist.
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GUDecks
I got the idea to run these cards from [Sparta] jeeyk's deck. I prefer to be more aggressive and run more creatures to get board control and start chipping in face damage early, so I cut the slower 3 drops i.e. Shady Merchant and Vault Vagabond.
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GUDecks
There are a lot of cards to choose from in deck-building deception. You can make it cheaper by cutting out Orfeo, Pyramid Warden, and Netherborne Binders, they're aren't integral to the deck. If you want to make it dirt cheap, you can cut The Hollow, Lady Marcella, and Reflection Elementalist, the deck will still run the same way.
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https://gudecks.com/decks/26328
Shackled Acolyte is more of a meta call in the 2 drop slot and doesn't fit well in a tempo list. It's on the slow side and gets removed easily e.g. against magic where they have 1 mana spells that kill it, deception where it's an easy target for Stoneskin Poison or Hunting Trap, and nature has Underbrush Boar.
Counterfeit I found dead too often for my liking, drawing a brick and not applying pressure is not good for this deck.
Shade Walker is really bad against nature, spending 4 mana to get taken out by canopy, underbrush, or lightning strike sets you back. It doesn't feel like it fits in well with the rest of the deck. You could make a few changes to be more aggressive and have Shade Walker as a finisher.
Lantern-Bound Fae is too slow at 5 mana and wants you to run more order cards.
Guild Enforcer is being slept on. The body is beefy stopping your aggro dead in their tracks. There are few cards that out this effectively. But it is on the slower side and I have bricked drawing too many 5 drops.
Reflection Elementalist is real fun, it's nasty transforming a weakened Pyramid warden. 3/4 body does get eaten by bigger creatures at this mana so it's worse if you're behind. Ward can be hard for some decks to deal with effectively and keeps you from getting board wiped completely (except for Apoc Now).
Orfeo does a lot of work. Spending 0 mana to kill one of your opponent's creatures gives you a lot of tempo. He is better early and gets less strong as the game progresses since the tempo gain is best at the start.
Uncanny Rogue is really good if you're ahead on board being able to trade up any of your creatures into whatever threat your opponent just played.
Ransom is strong being able to go through ward and send back a threat, setting back your opponent. It's great when you're ahead applying pressure but only okay behind delaying their creature. Ransom is more flexible than some of Deception's other removal.
Lightfoot Informant is a consideration at the 2 mana slot to get value, especially with Reflection Elementalist and uncanny rogue being able to buff it. The body is small and I feel like the deck has enough other value cards.
Dark Knives is good for burst damage but I bricked on them when my opponent removed all my creatures. Compared to Tempo Magic's reach, it has the opportunity to get in extra damage if the buff creature lives but needs a creature that can attack face. I want to find room for this but I don't know what to cut.
Mugging is good for getting around ward or order and is good for taking out protected threats like Master Tactician or Oddi but it is terrible against nature's creatures and nature is the most popular deck. More of a tech card for when you are confident in what you match against.
You can run 1 copy of Rapture Dance for mind games so your opponent has to play around it and not go wide. But it's not a card I want to run, I don't want to fall behind and rely on plan B with this deck.
I've seen some decks run Cutthroat Insight but it goes against this deck's game plan. You don't want to spend most of your mana taking a card from your opponent's hand.
Munosian Infiltrator is good for dealing with beefy early creatures. I haven't played with it much. Might be good over Skeleton Heavy, but 3 health dies to a lot more things than 4.
The emphasis of this deck is tempo, get board control early with your cheap creatures, use your removal to set your opponent back and keep pressing your advantage, then use your god power to hide creatures to close out the game.
The deck is hard to pilot knowing when to play for tempo or value, transition between them, and start going face to close the game out.
It is great at going first. The spells are like throwing obstacles at your opponent behind you, likewise, it's harder to hit them if you're behind. On the other hand, it has a tough time coming back from behind. The removal spells are better when you have board control so you can kill their threat while hitting face and getting favor.
Watch your life total and know what kind of reach your opponent has, having cards in hand doesn't mean anything if you're dead.
Sometimes you can rush games out by hiding a creature and beating in a couple of times if you can apply pressure early with your creatures.
The deck tends to run out of cards quickly to get tempo then recoup card advantage later on through your value cards.
You don't want to use your god power early unless it's your best play, spending 2 mana early sets your tempo back a lot.
| God | Archetype | Score (Wins/Matches) |
|---|---|---|
| Death | ||
| Zombies | 4/4 | |
| BWD | 1/2 | |
| Deception | ||
| Order | 2/5 | |
| Light | ||
| Aggro | 1/1 | |
| Magic | ||
| Tempo | 1/1 | |
| Ramp | 1/1 | |
| Nature | ||
| Midrange | 6/7 | |
| War | ||
| Midrange | 3/3 | |
| Aggro | 1/1 | |
| Total | 20/25 |
BWD is really hard, they have too much healing and sleep to rush down, and they got late-game grind with Neferu, Jason, Khopesh, so you have to be lucky they don't draw well and rush them down.
The 1 BWD win was against a janky budget build, so take it with a grain of salt.
Zombies can be really tough if they get going, most of your removal isn't useful against zombies and you'll get swarmed by them. It's easy if they can't establish a board.
I faced the same guy twice and I think ransoming his vampiric skull in both games might have cinched it for me. Got lucky both games finding relic removal in the sanctum.
If I remember my mirrors against Order Deception, I only lost 1 going first, and won 1 going second. Wen going first and second stats in API.
It's hard going second especially in the mirror since you start off on the back foot and don't have many opportunities to take back tempo.
One guy did run Frumentarii Instigator and drew 5 cards from both of our guild creatures.
I lumped the nature decks together, sometimes gudecks called them control nature if they had slightly more top end but all the decks were similar enough.
Hunting Trap is killer in this matchup, I usually mull it though since I want to use it later on bigger creatures instead of having it early to use on a Black Jaguar. Switch Duelist is strong being able to trade up into their x/3s.
Sage of Renewal is disgustingly good, big body, dig for the right spell, and refresh mana. It's going to be hard if they get to 7 mana.
It's hard to finish off the opponent late game with hidden creatures since they have removal that goes through hidden.
My 1 nature loss was to a 1/5 Pangolin coming back from Pyramid Warden.
Midrange war is draw dependent, you can outpace them if you draw well and go wide before 5 mana then finishes them off by hiding your creatures. Reflection Elementalist is surprisingly strong here, 3/4 Ward creatures are hard for them to kill, most of war's usual blitz cards deal 3 damage at most.
