Intro
Hey y’all! I am noverb and I am back again to talk more about Peasant. This time I’m focusing on decks and archetypes I expect to make a showing at Peasant Eternal’s inaugural tournament, the Spring Open on April 1st. Quick plug if you haven’t already you should
join the discord and
sign up for the tournament. Plugs aside, let’s get into it.
As with all my primers, I want to first explain what Peasant is and give you a little info on the format. Peasant is a community format centered around the ideology of being new player friendly and easy to get into. So with that in mind here are the deckbuilding rules:
- Your deck can only consist of commons and uncommons.
- Cards that would create or transform cards to be rares or legendaries are not allowed.
Examples include: Cards with Invoke & Unstable Form.
- Cards from campaigns or “small sets”. When sorting by set in client these are sets with a circular emblem.
Peasant hopes to allow new players to download the game and be able to play with a cheaply crafted deck right after leaving the tutorial. The creating/transforming rule stems from the idea that everyone should be playing on even footing. Creating or drawing cards of higher rarity breaks that idea. The campaign ban is largely because it creates a large financial barrier to the format. If you have any questions there is a more detailed set of rules in
the discord and we can also answer any questions the rules don’t.
Noteable Cards
Instead of diving right into decks I’d like to take a minute to talk about some cards and archetypes I’ve found strong in testing for the Spring Open. These are cards to keep an eye on for this and future events.
Watchwing Support Originally banned under the clause of creating rares and legendaries. This cycle was unbanned with the catch that you may not choose to take any legendary or rare out of your Market. While in the market they have no effect on the game.
Support is a passable card on it’s own. Giving a “double Warcry” to the top unit/weapon of your deck is a solid effect. A lot decks generally play other attachments passively, such as
Combrei Blueprints,
Argenport Blueprints,or
Permafrost. Those would then have the added benefit of buffing again.
However, it becomes exceptional when built around. The biggest combo is also the easiest to use:
Martial Efficiency. Every single amplify triggers
Watchwing Support to make the top unit/weapon absolutely massive. This only gets better with multiple Supports.
Another use of the card is to play only one target for the buffs to go to:
- An unblockable weapon in
Hidden Garrote or
Edge of Prophecy that will double it’s buffs once played.
- An Unleash unit like
Tinker Unionist to swarm the board with massive units.
This kind of build doesn’t even have to sacrifice it’s unit suite. You just play cards like
Rat Cage and
Brigade Hall. These are relics that trigger Support and play a unit, but don’t act as a unit in your deck to soak up a buff. Then after you play a substantial number of attachments you can search up your weapon with
Dragon Forge. I’ll post a deck like this later in the article.
Eremots Machinations If you’ve been following Peasant for any amount of time it will come as no shock that Eremot’s Machinations is good. Even post-nerf the card has made it’s way into every top cut that the format has had. The greatest thing about it is that it doesn’t even necessarily require you to be playing it in a specific archetype. Every deck playing the factions or playing either shadow or time should ask itself if it could feasibly run Machinations in the Market or Main.
The breakout deck was one that mirrored it’s Throne and Expedition counterparts at the time: FTS Sacrifice. The deck aims to use
Kindling Carver and
Devour to sacrifice it’s willing subjects in the name of card advantage. Their death won’t be permanent either as they eventually use Machinations to get back their sacrifices later. A noteable threat in this and other Machinations builds, Nahid’s Faithful. This card loves to be reanimated not only to get overwhelm, but to get bigger again!
As mentioned before, Machinations can fit in most archetypes and faction pairs/trios. It’s just a matter of figuring out which one, two, and three drops you are trying to grab. If you have a lot of these or just consistent ways to sacrifice them you may want Machinations main. If it is more of a secondary thought it may need to go into the Market.
There are also notable ways to cheat your Machinations curve. Shoal Dredger reduces cost over time with units going into the void, so depending on the current number it can fit any of the three slots.
Blurred Stygimoloch does a cool impersonation of a three drop if you already have an established board.
Defile and
Eavesdrop just straight up take the opponents good hits to pad your coffers. So you’ve got some wiggle room on your curve.
Feln Adept I was unsure of this card during our set review. I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to trigger frenzy and I didn’t even consider other ways to give it extra power. Having now experienced the card first hand, I’m a big believer in it’s power.
Let’s first talk about the Frenzy side. There exists a few decks that can trigger it consistently.
Warding Beacon and
Hidden Garrote from a control shell are my favorite. You can also trigger it off of burn spells like
Torch, Harbinger’s Bite, Through the Unknown, or even
Stealth Strike, another favorite of mine. There also exist units with damage effects like
Stonepowder Alchemist and
Autotread.
Then you dive a little deeper and say, do we really need Frenzy to consistently attack with Adept? No. There is a vast swath of ways to give it at least one power to make it attack and start drawing you cards:
Vine Grafter, contract cards like
Battlefront Dasher,
Markmaker, Beastcaller’s Amulet, Parul’s Choice,
Bless the Wild,
Glen Pathcutter, anthems like
Majestic Skies, and many more!
It takes a little consideration to include this card in your deck. But if you take the time it can be a huge boon to your gameplan. Don’t underestimate the power of drawing cards on an aggressive unit.
The Decks
Alright, I’ve taken some time to say my piece about some cards that have definitely left their mark on me while testing. Let’s now look at some sample decks for those who may still be looking for a deck, or just those who want an insight to what the meta might look like!
Combrei Aggro
The winning archetype of the first Peasant tournament and something for those that prefer a more streamlined gameplan. This aggro deck features a strong curve of units and great pump spells to allow them to push through more damage.
Market: Grumbo’s Platoon is probably the only must-have. Other immediate Market inclusions could be
Sand Warrior as a free 4/4 Charge after you pay the three, any of the one cost bounce spells, or even
Cloudscraper. Take a look through time’s low cost effects as cards you can grab and play that turn or get something bigger that will really end the game when grabbed.
Other combrei adjacent decks:
TJS Empower Combrei Aegis + Watchwing Support FTJ Charge Mother TJP OTK (Berserk/Double Damage + Pump) Mono Fire
I figured I’d just get the aggro decks out of the way first, so next up is Mono Fire. In the second Peasant tournament two different shades of Mono Fire made it to the finals: Aggro and
Flash Fire. I’m gonna cover Aggro, but a Flash Fire deck will be linked below.
On top of having some of the most aggressive units in the format, playing a mono faction deck allows you to play
Prism Golem as a three cost 5/5. In my build I chose to go with an OTK style route where you pump up Double Damage and Berserk units with
Scythe Slash and
Shugo Standard for a quick kill. You can also add
Mightweaver to make those even stronger by combining Double Damage and Berserk, at the cost of taking a turn off.
There’s honestly so many options for Fire that you may not want to sacrifice speed for Market access. However, you do get access to
Roaming Cache using
Caravan Delivery to anthem you twice and draw a card. So whether that + other market options is better than say,
Beacon of War, is really personal preference and playstyle.
Other Mono Fire adjacent decks:
Flash Fire Stonescar Frenzy Rakano Onis Aggrocoaster
Deck name originally coined by Batteriez, the deck plays mainly one-drops and tries to swarm the board. Fueled by
Gustrider to loot away excess power and
Lumen Shepherds and
Draconic Looting to churn into more one-drops, the deck has a decent amount of staying power.
This updated version plays around with the idea of
Feln Adept using cards like
Battlefront Dasher,
Autotread, and
Glen Pathcutter to allow it to attack and draw you more cards. If you can’t make it work, you can always just loot it away to a gustrider and continue on with the beats.
The real question about a deck like this is whether or not you want a market. In Batteriez’s original list he played a set of
Beacon of War. A very strong card that anthems every turn as well as getting rid of problematic blockers temporarily. In my most recent build I’ve been trying
Caravan Delivery. It does an impression of the anthem effect with
Roaming Cache while replacing itself. Then it also gives you other Market options.
Fliers
A simple deck translated from an old Expedition deck. There are a lot of Flying units to choose from, so you can mix and match as you want. A notable exclusion from this deck is
Snowstorm Druid. Giving yourself Aegis helps protect the
Majestic Skies. You could probably include it over
Gloaming Wisp or
Shifting Illusion, but I preferred their effects for this build. Also notable that this deck isn't playing removal other than
Frostpact Sprite, you may want to opt for playing a number of
Permafrosts as well.
Other Fliers adjacent decks:
TPS Fliers Grenadins
Let’s move into an aggro offshoot with a more tailored plan: Grenadins. Unlike most other aggro decks, this deck wants you to specifically play Grenadins to trigger Disassembler. This gives the deck a lot of reach as the opponent starts to stabilize the field.
The archetype also allows you to play some unique cards. Steam Blast and Thundershot are more payoffs for going wide with a lot of small units. These two burn spells can give you incredible reach with very little power investment. The final card that really pays you off for the Grenadin “go wide” gameplan is Homesick Yeti. The deck offers many ways to mix and match your plays to flip into Red very easily.
There are quite a few cards that benefit you for playing Grenadins across Fire, Primal, and Shadow. Playing one, two, or all three factions is a balancing act of figuring out what powerhouses you want to play. For example, moving out of two factions means it’s probably too greedy to play Corrosive Dagger.
Other Grenadin adjacent decks:
Stonescar Grenadins FPS Grenadins Xenan Lifeforce
Before
Curtain Call was printed theovermaster and I built a deck based around an aggro build that gained life to make our Lifeforce units bigger. The deck was a great success and got both of us into the top cut. With the addition of Curtain Call and other great Lifesteal units being printed I feel like this archetype could have only gotten better.
While our original build featured an aggro variant, that isn’t the only way to play it. This new build features more combo elements with sacrificing
Grenamender and using that spiked life gain to play a big Radiant off of
Bloodcall Invocation. This may be worse than more Lifesteal combat tricks, though.There are other builds that can be more midrange focused around triggering
Hive Hexagon. You can also add Justice for cards like
Deathwing and
Ghostblade Outcast.
Xenan Lifeforce Mid TJS Hive Unseen
A personal favorite of mine. It always feels like Unseen is right on the edge of being great, but not quite there. The deck features a lot of aggressive units that combine well to make keyword soups that can then be spread from unit to unit with Exalted.
The deck also has the ability to perform combo kills thanks to our new friend
Hooru Adept.
Prodigious Student got buffed, like a lot, in a patch a while back going from garbage to top tier. Vara’s Intervention is one of the best removal spells in the format while in this deck. All three modes are live and good, making it a card to be worried about.
The Market has some cool choices,
Switchblade Deadeye actually wants to have that Grafter buff which is real cool, and is an Unseen to boot. There’s always the question of whether you want
Dark Return or
Immortalize. Dark Return allows for more tight power grabs, Immortalize is better when you have power to spare.
Other Unseen decks:
Unseen Hero AP Unseen Dredge
This deck is more combo than it is aggro, as in the early turns your gameplan is just to get your deck into the discard pile. From there the gameplan is to play
Umbren Deathwatcher,
Shoaldredger, or
Bone Music to apply pressure to the opponent. You can then press the issue with
Haunting Scream +
Dark Return to make quick work of their life total.
Your worst nightmare is
Eavesdrop. Thankfully most decks have that in the Market, not the main deck. So the ways to protect yourself are
Mindbroken Cobbler and using
Defile on their
Vine Grafter. If that fails there's always your own Eavesdrop in the Market.
Mandrakes
Let’s move away from aggro and start touching on a pillar of the format ever since Empire of Glass introduced them. The deck is more complicated than your average unit-type.dec. Due to having few Mandrakes printed and them being split amongst three factions you have to take care with your options. Not only that but they are Ultimate-centric and each of their Ultimates is a little different.
Due to the Ultimate requirement, the deck gets pulled in a lot of ways. While you can pack ways to gain life and discard cards, I found it was also helpful to pack units that could Ultimate on command. This is why we play a double Grafter Market. Build the deck right and you end up with a pile of very resilient cards and some amazing ways to bring them back. That makes this deck one of the most formidable midrange decks of the format. There’s also an offshoot of the deck that plays around with the idea of looping
Invasive Creeper with Deliveries.
12 Market Mandrakes FTS Sac
I do believe this is the oldest and most resilient deck of the format. With 7 Top-8s, one of which was a win, spanning all four of Jedi’s Charity tournaments, this is the most decorated deck of the format. The deck aims to grind the opponent with
Kindling Carver and removal then bringing it all back with Eremot’s Machinations.
Not much has changed since it’s original debut. One exciting card for me to explore in this archetype, much like Grenadins, has been
Homesick Yeti. Display and Machinations plus a power for turn flip Red on their own, and Red makes an excellent Machinations hit. Beyond those two you can make the flip happen with Carver sacs and Corrupted units. The point is not that you are bending over backwards for Red, but that Red works alongside the plan you already had. Then Red becomes a card advantage engine just like Carver.
The Market is more or less fixed, with
Chemtrail Burst being the flex slot. Previously it was
Mysterious Waystone but with
Watchwing Support and
Edge of Prophecy decks garnering relic hate it’s less guaranteed as a wincon.
FJS Sac FTS Sac (Without Red) FTS Radiants TPS Eremot's Machinations + Haunting Scream Combrei Ramp
This is a deck that can do something no other deck reliably can, make
Omenscar Wurm and From The Heavens viable. Through a lot of early removal and powerful ramp effects, the deck operates with cards that most decks don’t even dream of. With the use of From the Heavens to clear the board and present a game-winning boardstate, it can turn around a dire game very quickly.
Ramp suffered quite the nerf with
Enter the Monastery now costing 4 but gained a few other neat tricks to make up for it.
Speed Grafter now has the option to grab
Myrmidon Builder. That makes it a nice 2-3-4 curve all on it’s own that applies pressure and ramps you. Grumbo’s Platoon out of the Market also serves as another way to turn all that excess power into a clean kill later in the game.
FTJ Armory
The archetype I piloted in the first Peasant tournament to a Top 4 finish. Few feelings in Eternal are as great as playing a relic weapon above 60 Attack/Health. The idea of the deck is you play the slow game, removing your opponents threats early and then searching up an
Edge of Prophecy. Once the Edge is destroyed you grab it from the void and replay it. And again. And again.
There are quite a few builds you can use. From adding primal to get
Touch of Wild and
Cirso's Choice to counter tokens, to removing the units and playing it as the sole target of
Watchwing Support. Even the first builds had many different opinions on what should be played in the 75 and we’ve gotten plenty of options since.
FTJ Hare of Prophecy FTJ Watchwing Edge FTJP Wet Prophecy FTJ Steelwarren Support FJS Armory Revenge
Honestly not really an archetype I messed with a lot in the past. It wasn’t until Random7945 showed me his list that I got interested in Revenge. The general idea is that you play Revenge units, ways to sacrifice them, and ways to redraw them, which plays them for free and draws you a card. That will generally outvalue most decks if you can survive long enough to get it rolling.
The spice that I’m on is
Touch of Resilience. I’m a big fan of the Touch cycle and this is no different. It lets you give a unit and your
Draconic Looting or
Display of Ambition Revenge for ultra vaue. The one featured is my “tame” FJS one, but below I’ll share some saucy four faction variants!
FJPS Tomb Revenge FTJS Clockroach Revenge Watchwing Garrote
A new combo that I'm confident is just going to define an archetype. Thanks to the "dubious discovery" of BeardBroken we learned that
Watchwing Support was impressive with only one target in the deck. The original list played
Tinker Unionist, which is a sweet usecase. But I like the idea of using
Hidden Garrote, an Unblockable weapon for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that you can use
Dragon Forge (or
Display of Knowledge) to find it when it's time. On top of that, it's a lot less investment of power to just grab a two-cost weapon from your deck. Didn't get the kill? Use
Voprex's Choice or
Soldrain Smithing to get it back.
TJPS Watchwing Garrote Control
So this is where we diverge into lands that I’m not super comfortable with in Peasant. Before Full Tilt and From the Heavens control didn’t really exist. Now with ways to answer giant boards control can get a bit more leverage.
The deck being showcased is created by AlexFiero. The idea is to deal with the opponents units, draw a lot of cards, and then win with
From the Heavens,
Tomb of the Azuremage, or Vizier’s Tablet. The deck has answers for most things, including main deck
Eavesdrop and
Display of Vision as void and relic hate.
You may not want to go with this four faction behemoth. I’ve got a few other ideas for control like Touch of Battle or Frenzy style with
Warding Beacon to fuel your
Tomb of the Azuremage or
Feln Adept. Control is very much your choice on what package you want to play and it also takes into consideration the meta. However with the last tourmament being two sets ago, it’s hard to tell what the meta is going to look like.
Other Control adjacent decks:
FPS Frenzy Control v1 FPS Frenzy Control v2 FTP Touch of Battle Hooru Control FJP Control Skycrag Control The Rest!
Below I'm gonna just dump more of the other decks that are in my deck folder for you to check out if the above didn't tickle your fancy. They are in no particular order. I've just run out of time and wanted to get this article out before the tournament. So here ya go!
Xenan Radiants JPS North-Wind Herald AP Midrange FTS Cult of the Bun Elmer Fudd Soldier Amplify Thank you!
Thank you for reading and perusing all the decks that others or myself have brewed up for the Peasant Tournament. I'll see you tomorrow for the
Peasant Eternal Spring Open!
