Condemn
x4
1
Sinister Rumors
x2
2
Backlash
x3
2
Exploit
x3
2
Ice Bolt
x4
2
Makkar Evangel
x3
2
Re-read
x2
2
Vara's Favor
x3
3
At Any Cost
x4
3
Display of Survival
x4
3
Hailstorm
x2
3
Wisdom of the Elders
x4
4
Forbidden Research
x4
4
Stealth Strike
x4
5
Prodigious Sorcery
x4
Shadow Sigil
x3
Crest of Cunning
x4
Feln Insignia
x4
Feln Painting
x4
Feln Tome
x4
Seat of Cunning
x2
Shadow Symbol
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
- Display of Survival requires 3 Primal, isn't that too steep to be running 4-of maindeck? How often is it a dead card due to lack of influence? And how often is its effect good enough to run a full playset?
- No Honor of Claws. Do you miss it?
- No Vara's Authority to deal with Plunk, sites, face-aegis, and Yetis in general. I feel like being a fast spell gives it an edge over Hailstorm. Thoughts?
- Four Prodigious Sorcery. Maybe too many?
- Any thoughts on: Display of Will, Shrivel, Dazzle, and Annihilate?
Display- Yes 3 primal is steep and I often find i am not casting it till turn 4 or the first one is turned into a primal influence with exploit. I'd say however I can't think of too many times that I have had a display or more stuck in my hand and been sad. It has happened but forbidden exploit and condemn combined for quite a few allowed "Dead" cards per game. Is it good enough to run a playset anyway? Absolutely. Display is our do it all card that we can get back with prodigious even. Main deck relic answer? Check. Main deck answer to creature recursion? Check. Instant speed sweep for a large number of charge creatures? Check. Protection from discard, dichos, and Orene's scepter? Check. Its the main reason i came back to an AAC deck post Transpose not giving face aegis.
-Honor of claws. Yes i miss this card. It's an insane amount of value. However I still won't be adding it in this version. This deck really wants to play at fast speed and is already using 4 slots in the 4 cost draw slot with Forbidden. You loose a small amount of card advantage playing forbidden over claws, but i dont think the deck has room for both and the fast speed plus influence gain towards AAC and Steath Strike is just too important.
-Vara's Authority- Plunk and some other aegis yetis can be annoying, but for the most part the deck doesn't have an issue with them/face aegis. You have many many ways to break an aegis, many of which recur or give value besides it. The deck also runs 4 icebolt partially as a concession to plunks power in the meta. Sites that die to Vara's also die to any double ping, or stealth strike or AAC so im not too worried about that additional utility. Lastly, a prodigious hailstorm clears most boards even late game; it's the closest thing to a harshrule effect.
-prodigious- Nope. In many lists even AAC one, 4 could be too many. In this list it's the main draw engine and value creator. Most of the deck choices are influenced by the ability to be bought back with prodigious. As mentioned with Display, the deck has many discard outlets that can let us shed dead cards. Even if it's a dead card early it can be shed, and if not I want all 4 basically every game. There is almost no aspect of this version of AAC that 4 prodigious doesn't make better.
- Display of Will is an ok card. Reasonable in most matchups and if it did dmg at any part of the text i might be convinced to run a few. Being unable to be hit with prodigious is gonna be a large mark against running a spell in this version of AAC. I think it would be a strong 2 of in a less prodigious focused version.
- Shrivel Dazzle and Annihilate all are similar reasonings for not being included, though shrivel and Annihilate have the further downside of being dead in some matchups. I try in a control deck to not have more than 7-8 dead cards in an reasonably popular matchup or archetype. That number is based on how many cards im reliably getting rid of with Forbidden, condemn, and exploit. A not to be overlooked advantage of this deck is the inherent card advantage you gain in some matchups simply due to a difference in number of dead cards. Control mirrors for example; every kill spell or board sweep an opponent runs that doesn't have a second mode is a dead card against us, where as our kills spells even do face dmg, remove spells, or give us face aegis and draw a card. This creates a power imbalance in the matchup from turn 1.
All these thoughts aside; If you wanted to build a less prodigious and fast speed focused version. I think Claws could be good as up to 3 of if you dropped 1 or two forbidden, you could go down to 2 prodigious, 2 Display of Survival, swap hailstorm out (Though id be careful there, still a lot of 3 health units in the format), and add in your selection of Display of will, shrivel, Dazzle, Annihilate, Grandbuilder, or whatever control tools you like best. AAC is a flexible archetype, this is just the version I like the best and think is the best positioned in the format.
As always, hope this has helped and thank you for the feedback and ideas. No one deck builder will make the best deck.
That all being said, this deck's fantastic, and having Backlash in the main deck, and a Condemn market with Bottled Insight is very smart for this deck. It even has an acceptable Stonescar matchup, which is difficult for AAC decks to really deal with traditionally. I do wonder what makes Rumors and Waystone Alignment stand out for you, though. Thanks for sharing this list!
Waystone vs Avoid death- Ill start by saying I considered avoid death for the market but settled on waystone for a couple reasons. The big advatange waystone brings to the table for me is that it answers two separate situations this style of control deck can run into. Relic swarm and token/yeti or dork swarm. Only running 2 Hailstorm and no other sweeps the deck can struggle with a bunch of tokens or too many one drops or two drops coming out early. Sentinel aggro, token aggro, Primal Justice aggro, to name a few. While the early aggro tools can often be enough, being able to get waystone early and kill all 1 drops or 2 drops is game saving for me now and then. It is a similar concept with 2 and 3 cost relics. While way stone on 3 is expensive, 5 power, clearing all of your opponents Dicho's ruins, or Ramp relics (since so many relics people want to stick around are 3 power) can pull you back into a lot of games that otherwise your only option would be hope to combo faster. As i'm trying to play this deck as a control deck first and combo second, any tool that can take only one slot and save me in a couple corner case situations that would otherwise be unfavorable is valuable. It should also be noted its about the only way out of multiple Syl a control really has access too. Take 12-18 to cast hailstorm just isnt an option sometimes.
All that said; I believe avoid death will be a more used market card. It will have a lower impact but rarely be dead; I tend to look for high impact spells from my market if i can though. Things that answer the question of "What cant I beat normally?"
Sinister rumors has been actually an allstar for me but not in the way you'd expect intuitively. Ive only used it for creature buy back once to get my 12th shadow, i use it on aggro every now and then to kill a creature, but almost always i am slamming it asap on discard a spell of choice. Most decks in throne are running a couple spells that can be high impact against such an inflexible game plan as ours, and the aggro decks are even usually running some late game burn that can be important to not let them get. Hatting market access from decks only playing Etchings is also nice because there are many market cards that suck for us to play against.
All that aside, the reason I havnt been able to get away from the card is primarily the information gain. Seeing EVERY spell the opponent has in their deck plus some generic meta knowledge quickly can paint you a relatively full picture of what their game plan is and how your deck can best go forward to combat that plan. Having played control decks across many card games, it should never be understated how impactful knowing your opponents deck and hand can be.
Tldr- I use Sinister mostly for information to plan out my turns for the game and to take the high impact spells that if we didn't know about could steal a game from us, or could anyway (field ageis, counterspells, combo spells- eclipse and rebuild are our prime offenders here-).
Hope this helped some! Thank you for your feed back and support, questions and suggestions are always welcome! No one deck builder will alone make the best deck.
Evangel combined with Forbidden research instead in this list for two primary reasons. First being that the extra fate Shadow influence more often allows us on turn 4 to have an active stealth strike, and the second being that with Makka being discard fodder against all but hyper creature aggro, we get to go unitless and play mostly at fast spell speed the whole game.
Grand builder would be better in a more proactive game plan version of AAC combo, this version is a control deck first that kills with AAC combo later.