Making it to Mythic with...Midrange Nature?

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    kstreet

    Published on Feb 25, 2023
    About :

    This was a fun game. I'm mostly an aggro player and detest long games, but I'll occasionally play midrange for variety and it's propensity to lead to less common board states. In this game, our aggro light opponent goes first, draws well, and plays well. We still have the answers to beat him.

    Deck discussion and strategy after the gameplay breakdown.

    Gameplay

    1 Mana / Mulligan

    Animal Bond god power against Light every time. They want your board clear and need to kill the badgers off. They also have many warded/protected creatures that get buffed which makes Selena's Mark less effective. Note: against aggro War, take Mark. The healing helps offset their god power and their creatures are often lower HP.

    In the mulligan, we are looking for reactive cards. Boars, Dagan, relics, canopy, etc. The deck is full of them, but we don't find what we're looking for. My last decision is to mull Lightning strike. Light plays lots of little creatures, many with ward, which makes LS less apealing.

    Opponent has a mediocre open. Aggro light is looking to play two creatures on turn 1 going first.

    My hand is so bad I opt for a pip+badger. Never a good start, but my only option.

    2 Mana

    Luckily our opponent has a terrible turn 2. Trades and pips into his god power.

    Dagan is tempting, but a 2/4 Dagan gets levied and we're sad. Playing the Martyr here buys time for the Dagan + Chiron combo I want to play. In addition, it gets me a chance to get Dagan back.

    3 Mana

    Solid turn from our opponent.

    Dagan comes down and gets the buff from Chiron and his passive. This puts him at 3/5. At the point, Light is in trouble. Not only is Dagan scary, but he can't kill him first or else Martyr brings him back to hand as a 3/5 (game over).

    4 Mana

    Our opponent plays smartly and takes out Chiron first and clears the re-appearing Martyr. Ordering Dagan to buy time for his buffs is a solid play. He has enough creatures on board so that I can't make use of Dagan's passive on other creatures (he would just kill them).

    This deck runs three relics. 2x Faeflames and 1x Staff of Roots. The staff brings a lot of value to the midrange. A 1/1 body the heals is helpful against aggro. Doing 2 damage also helps get around 1-armor creatures like Armor Lurker. Against Light, 1-armor protected creatures shut down Faeflames. I get to work with the staff, but I make sure to play Chiron first to buff Dagan again. It's unlikely aggro light is playing imperious smite, and Dagan can snowball and win the game. Additionally, buffing the 1/1 from the staff wouldn't have kept it from getting cleared.

    5 Mana

    Nice turn from opponent.

    My job continues to be to get his board clear by any means necessary. A Blade of Whiteplain would have been nice here, but the Boar is decent. I take out Balthazar to get his passive off the board. He increases spell costs, and I do have spells in the deck. Next, I make use of Boar and go wide. Valewarden was another line, but not as good. Light's protected opponents trade nicely into single, big targets. They don't trade nicely against many, smaller creatures. Also, this is a good example of why you take Animal Bond: it can help clear protected, gets your board wide, and can hope for a Wildfire.

    5.5 Mana

    Another solid turn for Light. Without Dagan, we'd be dead for sure.

    We draw the wildfire. It's such a great midrange card packing both removal and a board buff. It's incredibly tempting. I opt for the Valewarden instead. Tough call, but I'm thinking about Asterius dropping next turn. Dagan and Walker get cleared and I lose the game. No way to get back in it. I go with Valewarden because it can answer Asterius after I wildfire. I also know that the opponent has to focus Dagan first. Finally, I clear a creature and then go face with the walker to get some favor. If our opponent doesn't have Asterius, I don't want him playing the Shield Maiden, so I take it.

    6 Mana

    Aaaaaand there's Asterius! Right on queue. Dropped on curve with a full board! Should be game over. Thankfully, we anticipated this perfectly. As he should, he focuses on removing Dagan first.

    Now I get to drop Finnian + Wildfire. Then make a favorable trade into Asterius. Finnian is yet another snowball threat that has to get removed. If our opponent leaves him on board, the 1/1 apples will overwhelm him. I make an odd choice and hit his Vicar with my Marsh Walker. I should have gone face for more favor + 1/1 apple, but under pressure my thinking was:

    1. Now dies if he trades into Minotaur.
    2. If he trades into Finnian like he should, I can clear him next turn.

    Of course, a Canonize would have punished both plans.

    6.5 Mana

    We are not punished with a Canonize, but he does have a buff to get him out of Marsh Walker range.

    OR SO HE THINKS! lol. We draw the second Wildfire - top decking like the real pros do. It's game over at this point, but our opponent doesnt' concede. Notice that I'm in no hurry to go face.

    7 Mana

    My aggro opponent's only hope is to re-take the board. He goes all in.

    Opting to clear the protected Vicar may seem odd, but the overkill on Green Giant is an important consideration. If an overkill creatures hits a protected creature, the shield absorbs all damage and there is no splash. The ward on Vicar also makes my Hunts worthless if I draw them.

    7.1 Mana

    A surprisingly good turn from Light. Ordering the Giant and fielding three creatures from a hand that was empty the turn before.

    Blade shows up, which is always nice against aggro opponents with lots of weak creatures. It's an easy clear.

    7.2

    Now this was definitely a surprise. Checking my opponents deck, this was a 1x Zealous March. Tucked away just in case he gets stretched to 7 mana. This was all the rage months back before the nerf to ZM (it used to fill the board).

    I could either go with The Hunt or the line I took with FFB. The Hunt was the better play. Guaranteed to pop all the shields (it doesn't do more damage to a creature than it's HP). However, I was far ahead and was curious how shields worked on splash damage from overkill. The game was in the bad so it was science time. Now I know: the splash randomly hits other targets meaning that them being protected doesn't ruin it.

    Then we just clear and it's GG.

    The Deck

    image.png

    Code:
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    Definitely not a F2P deck. It's pricey even without the Blades/Martyr.

    The curve is solidly midrange. Remember that Valewardens give a 7 mana wild creature on death, so imagine 2 extra cards in that 7+ column. My experience playing this deck had me make gradual changes to it over time. Two big ones:

    hunt.png

    I swapped out Sudden Blooms for The Hunt and added Serris for more healing. Aggro War and Hidden Rush Deception are so fast that you often make it to 6 mana by a sliver. You need The Hunt / Serris on curve to immediately turn the board state around. At 4 HP, Serris is free. At 4 HP or 5 with a pip you can Serris + Hunt same turn.

    I realize now that 1x Winter's Bounty would be better. I never bought it, but it's only $5 now, so maybe. Like I said, I don't play this deck as much as aggro decks.

    Alone, Serris isn't enough healing, but combined with Valewardens and Staff of Roots, this deck has a decent amount. Compost Charm is probably overkill for a midrange deck, but maybe it could fit.

    The other key to this deck is the early removal. This is critical to keeping aggro decks from running you over.

    rem.png

    Currently, I'm liking 1x Black Jag and 1x Stag. There are very few confused creatures in this deck for a reason.

    Conclusion

    Midrange nature is hanging better than I thought, but its definitely not going to take you high into Mythic. The Svart Basilisk is in the deck to help with sleep, but Demogorgons and Witherfingers dominate this deck. Still, it's a a nice change of pace worth checking out!

    Tags :

    godsunchained imx nft p2e gaming

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