Hi, I'm doing another deck tech on the tournament bundles from the store since people seemed to appreciate the last one. I'm again making sure to only include commons/uncommons, but this time I'll put a section at the end for anyone who'd like to use the 6,400 shiftstone you get for purchasing the deck on further upgrades. Enjoy! :)
Significant changes:
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2x Waxing Moon This deck is mostly full of large units, so giving them deadly doesn't do a lot. It's strong with
Twisted Farmer, but that's pretty much the only synergy and you can accomplish a similar effect by playing
Scorpion Wasp.
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2x Express Route Xenan has access to even better removal than Stonescar, so there's no reason to be playing this.
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2x Cull the Deck We'd rather spend power removing units or developing our many large threats than filter for specific cards.
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4x Xenan Blueprints, -
2x Vara's Favor I cut both of these for the same reason, namely that inscribe cards are generally more efficient and can have much more impact on the game with their non-power modes.
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4x Scorpion Wasp It's very flexible removal that can kill any attacking unit, even through aegis. Since a lot of people are playing midrange decks, it often trades up in power with cards like
Furious Magniventris.
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2x Zido, Cabal Housecat Zido is great, it will always 2-for-1 the opponent after it revenges and it can chump opposing units to stall into
Saloon Massacre or our late game cards.
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2x Eavesdrop Power that 2-for-1s is good. It's also worth noting that making the opponent discard cards is better than drawing for us, since we want them to run out of removal for
Azindel, Mastermind and
D'Angolo Might.
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2x Cloudscraper You can play this as a
Towering Terrazon if there are no fliers to kill, but if it does hit something then it's pretty devastating. It's also an amazing target for
D'Angolo Might.
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2x D'Angolo Might I think this card is a big reason to play this type of strategy, since it allows you to outdraw any other faction. The meta is very greedy right now and so having ways to outgrind other control and midrange decks is useful.
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1x Victimless Crime There are currently a lot of good targets for this card because of how uncommon hero decks are.
Furious Magniventris,
Scalesworn Patrol,
Mystic Ascendant, and
Inferno Phoenix are some of the commonly played hits, and killing these for only two power is extremely efficient.
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1x Dismantle The cost of running this is very low since it's just a power, but if you face
Dinosaur Nest early on then this can determine the outcome of the game, so you want access to as many as possible.
6,400 Shiftstone Guide
Okay, so a lot of people have pointed out that you actually receive 6,400 shiftstone when you purchase these decks! Because of this, I thought I would extend the guide by giving some higher rarity cards you could include using the extra resources. You could totally play the deck without any of these, but if you do want to upgrade it further then here are some suggestions:
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2x Wingbrewer, -
2x Ayan, the Abductor
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4x Javan, the Steel Crest
This card is amazing! It's an efficient on rate unit that comes with repeatable
Wisdom of the Elders for four power. It's a very significant upgrade compared to
Wingbrewer, which doesn't come with a body and can only be used once per turn (for a total of three uses). Your opponent is pretty much forced to find an answer for Javan if they ever want to compete for the late game, which the majority of decks right now do.
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4x Saloon Massacre
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4x Waystone Ignitor
Ignitor is a 4/3 unit on turn one which can also answer
Dinosaur Nest or
Stormhalt Plating, two very prominent cards in the meta. If you're against decks where
Saloon Massacre would be good, the 2/1+1/1 mode can be efficient to deal with wide boards. It's also great with Javan's buff ability, and gives more hits for his active!
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2x Bhodi & Rox Forever
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2x Mystic Ascendant
Bhodi & Rox is still a decent late game threat since it has inscribe, but you'll very rarely activate the "can't be killed" text, especially with the units we just added. Mystic Ascendant is actually more difficult to deal with, since a lot of the removal being played requires units to attack, and you're perfectly happy sitting back forever to draw cards :D
Campaigns
I've already covered all of the cards I would add using shiftstone, but there are a couple more that I'd make space for from campaigns. You won't be able to craft these, so keep that in mind when reading this ^^
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2x Twisted Farmer, -
2x Predatory Carnosaur
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4x Dinosaur Nest
I'm sure you were wondering why I didn't mention this card sooner, but yes it turns out that every Time deck should include this xD There isn't much more to explain, except that you pay 2 power for 9/9 worth of stats! You'll have a lot of trouble losing if this card activates, and it also synergizes very well with other cards in the deck, such as
Dinosaur Nest! Yay
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1x Dismantle, -
1x Victimless Crime, -
1x Cloudscraper
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3x Sinister Rumors
Sinister Rumors is extremely flexible here, since most of our removal is actually unit based. We also have cards like
Waystone Ignitor that you can recur to kill relics, and
Cloudscraper to find power or 2-for-1 a flier! In addition to all of that, it has a second mode to kill exhausted units with 3 or less attack. You'll most often use this mode against aggro decks, but you can also do stuff like attack into
Furious Magniventris and then use it post-combat after it exhausts from blocking. Please don't use the third mode.
That was a lot longer than the Stonescar guide, and I tried to be a lot more informative this time. I'll give an unlisted link to the full non-budget Xenan deck for people who don't want to go through the trouble of upgrading cards one by one. Okay bye ^^
Tier 1 Xenan Netdeck:
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/wd-t9grBy_k/op-rank-1-xenan-deck-never-lost-a-single-game