Firstly, another week, another 19-win run. Feels good to get better at this game and start unlocking cooler cards: shoutout to everyone writing good content on Hive!
This budget-ish deception rush deck is incredibly fun to play, as you get to play new cards from other decks and destroy them with their own ETH. The games are never stale, and you get to alternate from playing aggressively to having ten cards in your hand, and having to do a million operations, kind of like with Structure Mage. It is a bit expensive, and I would not necessarily recommend trying to build this exact deck without ‘The Hollow’ or ‘ Lantern-Bound Fae’, as they are key components to the deck. I would recommend this deck to anyone who enjoys playing wild games where you can never predict what your exact game plan will be until it is time to embark upon it. It is also much simpler to pilot than the other deck that I reached 19 wins in Mythic with (structure Mage), with a similar cost. Let's get to it.
Instead of doing the standard thing where you explain how to use each card, I have decided to just focus on my favourite cards, and give you some ideas for how to use them, and what you should be prioritizing. If you want a more basic guide to how to play Deception, I'd love to refer you to someone else. With that being said:
Super fun card, makes for some great value trades and unexpected face damage. Sick combo with Vanguard Axewoman as well: 2 mana 5/2 with blitz. Don’t be afraid to put this onto your pickpocket or other minions early on! If you can get +3 damage to the opponents face AND create a beefy minion for one mana, take it every time it is possible.
Patient Pickpocket
An amazing card that costs ten cents, need I say more? This will always be dealt with by the opponent if they can, but this means that this guy often soaks 2 mana (or more) worth of removal. If they can’t remove him, well not only do you have a good card that the opponent is holding, but you also get a read on his hand. Use this to your advantage.
Stoneskin Poison
Another cheap, amazing card: 1 mana to remove your opponents frontline for two turns of face damage, beautiful. You can also use this on a 3-health minion and then finish it off with a ping next turn. Almost always useful.
Armor Lurker
This little robo-rat is sick. It kills 2/3s (and lower) for free, and turns into a 2 mana creature. When to reveal the rat and go face is a tough decision. Sometimes you want to do this, but usually it is stronger to keep it hidden if you know the opponent has minions that are weak to it.
The Hollow
This has got to be my favorite card in the game! If you can pip it out on turn 1, going first, it is practically impossible to kill, and might just be enough to win a game against a slow start. Gives potentially infinite value, and can even catch some players off-guard if you order something else. Such a strong body for a two-drop, which sometimes warrants extreme measures (cough ping+ratify cough).
Ludia’s Dedicant
Among the strongest cards in this deck, you will find this creature which acts like a Hollow, sort of. Very strong, even sometimes when it has to be played on turn three. You’d rather wait, however, and even do something like pinging it when you play it out. Wins games often.
Lantern-Bound Fae
A very strong legendary in this deck, as we play plenty of order creatures. Sometimes it’s simply a 9-mana, do 3-damage twice, be a 3-4 body. Sometimes you get it down to where you have a free 3-damage ping every turn. Be smart with this one, if you have played an Acolyte or Escapee, and it has order 3, consider waiting for the next turn to play it, as you would instantly get it back to your hand, with a reduced mana cost.
Matchups
Here we see that I mostly clapped Nature players, and this deck does very well against them. Many of these players had proper decks (Finnian, 1/1 boi), but it did not matter as you out-sustain them in the long run, if you played your cards properly. They also cannot really get to your creatures with order, as they rely on random removal. War, the other popular budget-mythic hero, was also a relatively easy clap. We have enough removal to deal with their stuff early, as we are an aggro-ish deck, but once you get some card generation, they will inevitably slow down. I suspect that the deception match-up went so well due to it becoming more popular recently, so there is an influx of newer players. I usually played against similar decks with stronger cards, yet I seemed to almost always win. I won both against Zombies, lost both against BWD (who would’ve thought). One of the losses was to LesMaxos, if any of you are familiar with his youtube content.
I’m stoked that I managed to get 19-wins the second week in a row in Mythic, as I had many people on Reddit telling me that my previous run was a fluke due to not running into enough ‘op decks’. BWD still gave me a spanking, of course, but I made up for it by winning most of my other games. I hope this post encourages other people who are wondering whether they can make it in Mythic, as this is my third week there overall, and I can confidently say that it is possible, even with cheaper decks.
Peace out,
Shout-outs to: @Kephler for the tool to showcase the cards, 
-yeetmaster
