Hello everybody and welcome back to what will most likely be my last decklist for this year. I want to end things with a relative bang and cover a highly requested archetype; one that is struggling to get any coverage whatsoever due to its small cardpool and potential lack of community-wide experimentation. As the title suggests, today we will be looking at Public Enemy no. 1 of the GateRuler universe; Exvaders.
The Decklist
Exvaders have a lot of very powerful cards. From level one units with 3 STK to level 3 Units with a whopping 8/8/4 worth of stats, their combat prowess is certainly no joke. Furthermore, when coupled with the Wonderverse faction, their obvious shortcomings in respect to ‘defense‘ and ‘card draw‘ are decently compensated for. Yet, in a wider competitive context, the deck still has not reached its peak.
Primarily a combo deck in nature, the archetype relies on specific events, such as Exvader Dimensional Breach, to enable their large boss monsters in achieving critical mass in terms of their offensive capabilities. If the combo is at any point disrupted, barring some graceful CNTs, then the Exvaders will struggle to catch up. This mostly holds true as the archetype, at the moment, does require a turn or two to set up properly. Naturally, this appears to be too slow to be ‘competitive’, at least in theory. In practice, however, the startup period is well compensated for with the increased stats on the various Units.
As Exvaders are still not that common or straightforward regarding resource management, one can definitely win games with the wow factor alone. But, the caveat is that since the deck is fairly one-dimensional, the optimum strategy in countering its win-condition, when learned, will be applicable across the vast majority of games.
[As I often engage in the process of continuously refining my decklists, you can now find some alternate builds for Exvaders on my Twitter page]
Unit Line-Up
Eldritch God Cthulhu, Eldritch God Hastur, and Devourer comprise our main offensive lineup. While the former is probably the most iconic of the three, the latter two are principle units in their own right. Hastur serves as our primary searcher for Exvader Dimensional Breach, the key component to the deck’s entire strategy, while Devourer is an important aggressive unit that is not vulnerable to Giant Killer CNTs which are so prevalent during set 3.
While Exvaders handle the offense, Wonderverse comes in to sure up the defense. With a cost of 1, due to the Overlord Ruler’s skill, and the ability to be sentinel-summoned both Lady of the Grail and Dash Jordan – Space Adventurer make for sturdy shields against incoming damage.
While other cards exist in both colors that help further the gameplan, these are what I consider to be the core units in the Exvader Overlord variant of this archetype.
Final Thoughts
While options may be limited, building and playing with Exvaders has been a tremendous amount of fun. Their relatively light usage from a competitive standpoint has left them shrouded in a light cloak of mystery that is both aesthetically entertaining and bone-chillingly poignant, as we wait for the set that will truly propel them into the limelight.
Admittedly, it is somewhat disappointing that the new Superior Rare Nyarlathotep of the Thousand Masks is, not only ranked as the worst one in the set but also has very limited utility within its own faction. However, ever-optimistic, the hope is that it shall pay dividends in the future when more support cards are printed that can take advantage of his effects in a non-niche way.
Once again, I do sincerely hope you enjoyed this write-up. If you would like to see more, do not forget to give me a follow on Twitter and if you would like to be a part of the creative process that goes into doing these write-ups, you can also check out my Patreon.
Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays and have a great festive season full of love, laughter, and GateRuler!
gunnolfbjorn 