Kejell's FTS Kalis

Howebrew deck I based off an old standard Kalis deck from set 1. I wanted to see what the deck could do with merchants and other additions. I wanted to base the deck around Flamestoker and its soft synergies with cards like devour, kalis, torrent of spiders and combustion. I found I didn't have enough ways to win so I added Xenan Obelisk, which is the optional winbutton. Vault of the Praxis was tested but didn't help with the early game (critical part) and didn't proc enough to warrant the slots. Devour and Quarry are fundamental due to the lack of card draw available. Crests help a lot too. The deck worked and took me to Masters after some tweaking, but I found I didn't have enough units in a lot of the games. Scraptank and Gearcruncher were thus added and they seem to be round out the deck. Ideally I would want to add another Gearcruncher but the mana curve is starting to get weird.

Starting hand
Ideally you want at least a Grenadin Drone or an Assembly line. Other cards that help early are devour, combustion (with Grenadins) and a Kalis. Quarry is also a good starter and Kerendon merchant is excellent if you lack devour, combustion or Kalis. You do NOT want to take a hand with less than 3 power cards, preferably crests and all three colors. Going to 6 cards is preferable to starting with 1 or 2 power. Getting mana screwed will destroy this deck.

Early game
your priorities are to get to 6 mana and to get a small Kalis out. 3 units will get you a 6/6 Kalis and this will put you in a very good spot for mid game. It will hold off early game threats and while you might not be trading cards in the most efficient manner possible, the aim is to eventually fish back the Kalis with disjunction when it comes up anyway. If you don't get an early Kalis then go for Devour, Combusion and Madness to manage those pesky 3 and 4 drops

Mid-game
Once you have survived the dangerous early game its time to focus on your bigger drops. Vara, Flamestoker, Obelisk and Scraptank will let you take control of the game and put pressure on the enemy. Vara of course gets removed for the most part, and Gearcruncher will get targeted by silence, but your aim isn't to kill the opponent with these drops, but to corner the opponent as you use Grenadins to fill your void. If you draw a disjunction, this is where you can find an early opportunity to win.Especially if you have madness on hand. Your opponent will have dropped his big 5 power unit. You fish back your kalis with disjunction, steal his big unit, attack with all of them and then finish with Kalis.

Lategame. This deck tends to draw matches out and you will often end up here. Late game is where Obelisk, Spiders, Flamestoker and Gearcruncher really shine. Flamestoker is especially useful because it if you end up topdecking against an opponent it will put in a very bad spot. If you draw disjunction you can also win with Kalis. The options are many.



V1.1
Removed:
Azindel, Revealed x1 (market)
Vault of the Praxis x2
Smuggler's Stash x1 (market)

Added:
Scraptank x2
Gearcruncher x1
Devourx1 (market)