Tavrod makes nice hats (2.1)

Strategy:

The deck actually excels at all stages of the game. It can unmake player's life totals in the early game through use of Hojan. It can get to and drop it's 4 and 5 creatures before turn 4/5. It can then power through up to 7 or 8 power for Telut and Chains. It uses cheap weapons that bring a card to your hand or play a spell through spellcraft. These weapons work well because they can be used to trigger Hojan's renown and auric interrogator's card draw in the early game, while also being targets for Tavrod.

Vara and Tavrod are two of the most powerful units in the game, especially for their cost. These two require the opponent to have immediate answers or can win games on their own. Merchants have great synergy with Telut and Chains which turn the lowly merchant into a game ending unit and also synergize well with the rest of the units in the deck.

The deck features a lot of lifesteal and Tavrod of course has endurance. This makes the deck fairly sturdy against aggro.

The weapons chosen for the deck meet 3 criteria.

1) They can be cast for 3 or less meaning they can be used turn 3 to renown Hojan, which garauntees 4 power on turn 4 and gets you to 5 if you have another power in your hand, leading to turn 4 Tavrod drops.
2) They all add at least 1 power and at least 1 defense. The 1 power makes Interrogator into a card draw engine. The 1 defense increases Hojan above Vara's favor and snow ball vulnerability and takes interrogator above torch vulnerability. This makes both creatures harder to remove cheaply once you've invested an equipment.
3) They all have a powerful and tangible immediate effect beyond potential combat damage. This removes the biggest downside of weapons, which is that the opponent can use a fast spell to get a 2 for 1 before you get to deal damage. All the weapons have an immediate effect that alters play in addition to adding combat stats to a unit.

And of course, all weapons can be found and be stat boosted by Tavrod, making powerful and inexpensive ways to add damage if there is an opportunity to end the game.

There is also a central theme of drawing and cheating into play sigils. Vara's favor, lost scroll, Hojan's renown, fur hat, and privilege of rank all get sigils into your hand/play. Vara's favor and fur hat can renown Hojan leading to either of these cards leading to multiple sigil power acceleration. Privilege of Rank can be discarded by Tavrod to play it for free, which makes ramping to 7 or 8 power automatic while you focus on playing your free units and weapons that Tavrod gets you.

Sabotage and Devastating Setback in the deck to weed out removal primarily. "Wide" removal like harsh rule is particularly dangerous because your units don't have charge or impactful summon abilities, so adapt your play accordingly. Makto is in the market particularly for decks that run wide removal and avigraft heavily. Before casting chains, it's important to check the enemy hand for attachment removal spells. Devastating setback doubles as wide removal for you which wipes out tokens and weenies but doesn't kill anything in your deck as long as you played a power first. Devastating setback also significantly reduces the effectiveness of gangblocking, which can allow Tavrod to swing and survive when he otherwise wouldn't. Shrinking units is particularly effective against "Deadly" units, as these units tend to have very low attack.


The market also has vanquish if you're being pressured, but optimally merchants should be used on 6 or 7 power to drop Telut at 7 or Chains/SotSK at 8. Marketing out Makto is a good play at 3 (or 4 if you don't have Vara) only if you don't have a Tavrod in hand. Tavrod and Makto don't play well together as Tavrod likes to bury his destiny.

The deck's endgame is very powerful. You've got 3 hard swing win conditions in your market and if you can get a Tavrod to stick on the board you'll be drawing and playing more per turn than other decks can keep pace with. Interrogator speeds up the deck further by being a card draw engine. Additionally the deck has added synergy with chains as all the sigil find effects can be used via Chains as removal effects as long as there are sigils still left in the deck. Hence chains is by far the best win condition as long as the enemy deck isn't running harsh rule.

Strong matchups:

Decks that use permafrost. Permafrost doesn't bother this deck all that much. It's not effective against Tavrod and permafrosting interrogator or even hojan is sub-optimal because they can still be useful to you as targets for the weapons.

Aggro in general doesn't tend to do favorably against this deck. It has a lot of life stealing ability, cheap removal, and strong blockers and accelerates out of the early game so quickly that it doesn't leave much opportunity for 1 or 2 drops to be effective. The deck also has devastating setback which can stop grenadins and other weenies cold.

Nightfall (maul) this deck can burn through it's hand rapidly if it chooses to. If you're worried about maul, just stop trying to get maximum value out of every card and instead get them out of your hand. This deck loves to draw extra cards for free and gains a lot of health, so it loves it when the enemy plays nightfall and isn't afraid of maul damage typically.

Weak match ups:

Recent adjustments have made the matchup against control considerably more favorable, but there is no way to sabotage lucky top decks or spells pulled from the market and cast same turn. Your units don't have charge so the opponent gets a chance to remove them before they get to do anything. Removal counters the deck's ability to draw extra cards and get lots of value, so if opponent gets the right removals at the right times, it can be frustrating. The deck does offer some answers to control via sabotage, devastating setback, makto and sword of the skykin, but these matches ultimately come down to if they draw what they need when they need it or not.