Hello everyone and welcome back to another exciting deck profile. Today, we are going to be reviewing an archetype that was poised to be a significant meta contender in set 3. Unfortunately, it came into the spotlight a little too late, and as such, the opportunity to appropriately cover it never arose. Yet thankfully, it did receive some upgrades that should still keep it in the running. Let’s get into it.
The Decklist
In this instance, I elected to play the archetype under Overlord, mostly due to the energy-efficient nature inherent to the Ruler. While it is certainly feasible to play this particular deck (with appropriate modifications) under a different Ruler, there is something to be said about not having to wait to call your win condition, thus bypassing the required setup in order to pay its discounted cost, necessary under other circumstances.
Furthermore, we are utilising Volnar as our secondary colour. Traditionally, we would have elected to use the Yomajin Front, on account of it having access to better ‘level reduction’ cards. This is still an option as will be addressed below. However, set 4 has added Return of the King, a great -3 level CNT event that operates as a ‘cycle card‘ when drawn and whose downside may be specifically countered by our other amazing Volnar CNT, which needs no introduction; Skystrike Arrow.
Finally, Fell Wolverine makes a great addition to the roster, synergising quite nicely with Custodius, an important card that will be referenced below. Additionally, even though it may not be included in the current list you can also elect to run Skulvitch Dungeon Butler to specifically search out Lucifer the Lightbringer and set up Shadow of Hades.
Win Condition
Mistwyrm, Clock Tower Guardian of London is the main build-around card of this deck. With the ability to give your Ruler breakthrough in addition to restanding any Unit or Ruler in play, it exponentially increases the offensive prowess of the deck.
In addition, Custodius the Indomitable Guardian completes the offensive line-up by giving +1 STK to the vast majority of your units, in addition to having breakthrough itself.
Overall, your main goal with the deck at hand is to put forward a stalwart defense until you gather your main combo pieces. While the offensive combo can be disrupted, Volnar and by extension Skystrike Arrow does not seem to be extremely prevalent so far in set 4. Thusly there may be genuine rogue potential.
Alternate Build(s)
As alluded to above, Volnar is not the only option the archetype has regarding deck construction. The Yomajin Front offers a variety of ‘healing‘ effects that boosts the consistency of other CNTs like Shadow of Hades. In addition, we also gain access to The Grace of Spring, a great cost-effective event (in terms of level) that should allow us to excavate our relevant combo pieces from the deck.
Of course, if you would like to experiment further you could also explore a colour combination with Wonderverse. While it may have access to strong cards like Schrodinger’s Cat, the rest of the arsenal leaves little to be desired as you have to surrender Shadow of Hades as a CNT.
Naturally, set 4 did offer a new level reduction event; Haunted Space Mansion, that may be experimented with. But as the win condition relies heavily on chaining multiple attacks, it is somewhat of a high-risk medium reward option.
Final Thoughts
I am genuinely thrilled to have finally had the opportunity to do a write-up on the archetype at hand. It is fun, fast-paced and with a decent amount of synergy indicative of an actual archetype and not a simple assortment of randomly powerful cards. In terms of colour combinations, Volnar continues to be my personal favourite. Although, I do still concede the relevance of the other possible builds with Yomajin Front and Wonderverse.
Thank you for reading and I do sincerely hope you enjoyed this write-up. If you are curious 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. Your further support would be very much appreciated.
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