Disclaimer
I am not a pro and my opinions/deck may be garbage or at least suboptimal, so I'm very interested in opinions and advice from others. The deck has a hard time dealing with Relics (you know, being mono Justice and all), but if anyone has suggestions for changes and adjustments, I'm all ears!
Intro
So, with the release of Dark Frontier, and specifically
Sediti, the Killing Steel, I decided to update my Mono Justice deck, but I was not prepared for the level of success I attained.
Typically, I'm a pretty casual player, and I find myself spamming things like FTS Sentinel Reanimator or something similarly cheesy in the Casual queues. However, I wanted to see how well this deck could fair in the current meta, so I took it to Ranked as a Gold 1 player.
Well, after playing about 50 games over the last 24 hours - having lost about 15 of them, and ending with a 7-game win streak - I actually just hit Master with it! Unfortunately, I'm not the type to keep detailed statistics as I play, so I don't have exact win rates or anything, but I did try to pay attention to match-ups and how the deck handled them.
The General Game Plan
The ultimate goal is to apply heavy pressure early on with your cheap, efficient units, remove units that are too fat for them with your spells and weapons, and then drop a proc'd
Sediti, the Killing Steel ASAP to force them to either let you draw or risk their units versus yours. Of all the games I was able to drop one or two Sediti's, I probably lost 2 or 3. A 6/6 Flying unit on turn 4 or 5 is devastating, and even if they remove him, you now have a huge advantage into the mid-late game, especially against control decks.
Units
You want to start with
Crownwatch Paladin in your opening hand as frequently as possible, period. She dodges removal like a champ, Warcries your weapons and units for added survivability later on, and will often survive long enough to activate Sediti turn 4/5.
Hojan, Crownbreaker and
Icaria, Valkyrie Captain are obviously good to have as well, but their survivability against Fire decks will rely heavily on
Finest Hour. Both can help you ramp into an earlier Sediti as well, so if they survive, life is good.
Keeping
Valkyrie Justiciar and
Unseen Commando in your opening hand is also valuable for obvious reasons, but their respective effectiveness will depend on the match-up.
As explained earlier,
Sediti, the Killing Steel is your push for the end. As much as possible, you want to proc the Onslaught, but there will be times you have to play him without it. Don't feel like you can't do this, as it's necessary in many situations. A 6/6 Flying is still a 6/6 Flying, and he'll be a 7/7 very frequently due to Warcry or Icaria Ultimate. Weapons can activate Onslaught as well, so don't forget that if you have one! Also, one last note about Onslaught: it still procs if you swing at a Site, and it still procs even if your weapon or unit is removed before it hits!
And of course, we have our Market Man Sam,
Winchest Merchant.
Removal
Vanquish is about the best you're gonna get for this deck. You can handle anything with 3 Attack or below with units, and this takes care of the rest.
Auric Runehammer is incredibly useful removal in most situations, and
Stormhalt Knife is a lifesaver in many close calls. If either get Warcry'd, the usefulness increases. As stated above, weapons also help you proc Onslaught!
Avigraft is great, especially for
Vara, Vengeance-Seeker. The influence requirements are obviously not an issue in this deck, and it really helps in some matchups. Only drawback is that it doesn't hit Fliers, but that hasn't been too relevant for me at present.
Harsh Rule is good for obvious reasons, we don't want too many because it can be a dead drop, but it's nice to have a few. One included in the market as well.
Other
Lingering Influence ensures you get your power and lets you Scout for the things you need. It's very important to hit 5 power turn 5 in this deck, so having 4 of is necessary in my opinion.
Finest Hour is an all-purpose card. From combat tricks to unit preservation, damage pushing to life gain, it is very useful and versatile. This is also why I have 4 of
Crownwatch Standard.
Market
Another disclaimer, I really want to improve the Market in particular but I don't really know what's optimal. This worked in getting me to Master, but I'm always open to suggestions.
Emerald Coin - I've been playing with Coin as an addition power source in the Market, it's been pretty good so far and serves a purpose even beyond 6 power. I like it, but it may not be optimal.
Adjudicator's Gavel - Great for most Shadow decks in general, but especially useful against Winchest decks that utilize
Display of Ambition and for Scream decks. They will probably Market for
Bore, but there's little you can do about that.
Vanquish - Obvious, but it's always good to have more removal.
Vanquisher's Blade ends up being a bit too costly in most cases, so I didn't bother with it.
Harsh Rule - Similar to my reasoning with Vanquish, but I'm also kind of interested in
Pristine Light as a potential alternative. This applies throughout the deck in general, but I haven't tried it yet.
Sediti, the Killing Steel - To keep the quantity of Sediti's high!
Match-ups
I usually ran into Hooru Control, Stonescar Midrange, or Jennev Combo/Control, with some Praxis Pledge, Winchest Control, and Ixtun Control sprinkled here and there. I think I faced Skycraggro like 3 times, Auralian Rats once, and some other janky stuff here and there (Shout-out to LocoPojo and Grimfan for whatever jank they were playing against me!)
Stonescar Midrange was by and large the most difficult match-up. When I drew well and they drew poorly, I won, but otherwise, it was rough. It basically came down to getting more removal than them, and praying that your combat tricks went through. Also,
Stormhalt Knife was a godsend when I got it.
Aggro matchups were also about 50/50, and the outcome largely depended on having Hojan or Commando to mitigate damage.
Harsh Rule comes into play when they keep pushing for units and damage, and is a reason I'm hesitant about
Pristine Light in the Market.
Control decks were not too bad, as long as I didn't get Diogo combo'd before I could establish a board. If they're not aggressive enough, the Sediti proc wins you the game, as they have no way to consistently damage you. JPS control is probably the easiest to deal with only because they are typically limited on units, so you can just go to pound town on them with your weapons.
Grab Gavel from the market for Winchest control and other Void strategies and you're usually fine.
Conclusion
Other cards that have my attention are
Embargo Officer and
Pristine Light, as mentioned above. I don't like how Officer affects your own Market, and Pristine Light doesn't help against aggro so much, but if you can convince me to use them, I probably will!
Sorry for the lengthy write-up, but I hope you enjoy the deck! Again, let me know if you have suggestions! I'm all ears (:
Finest Hour
x4
1
Lingering Influence
x4
2
Crownwatch Paladin
x4
2
Hojan, Crownbreaker
x4
2
Icaria, Valkyrie Captain
x4
2
Vanquish
x3
3
Unseen Commando
x4
3
Valkyrie Enforcer
x4
3
Winchest Merchant
x4
4
Auric Runehammer
x3
4
Avigraft
x3
5
Harsh Rule
x2
5
Sediti, the Killing Steel
x3
6
Stormhalt Knife
x3
Justice Sigil
x18
Crownwatch Standard
x4
Emerald Waystone
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
I removed Sediti from the market and main-decked him. I added x4 of Seal of Devotion to help cycle through the deck better when you're top decking. Sometimes it bricks some of your opening hands, but I haven't found the games to be unwinnable when that happens. I slapped 1 copy of Reinforcements in the market and I've found it to be downright disgusting. If you want to ensure that Sediti stays alive, you play that first and it's pretty much a snowball win from there against other mid-range and control decks. I removed one copy of hojan, vanquish, and avigraft to support 3 copies of Sheriff Marley who helps stall the board and crushes aggro. Obviously weak to baby vara, however.
Really strong deck though! Thanks for the template to work with. :)
Marley sounds dope, too. She's one of my favorites from FoA, so I may follow suit and include her.
Anyway, happy to see the Mono Justice shell working out! Keep it up! (:
Anyways, a few cards I'm wondering about:
Amilli, Cloudmarshal? Seems perfect to accompany Sediti and also gets hit by icaria.
The 2 Harsh Rule in the main deck seem out of place; I understand the market one but ultimately you have better things to do on 5 and you might have creatures of your own dying in the Rule.
Hojan only has the 4 Finest Hour and after 5 the Crownwatch tactics to proc it's renown. Emerald coin helps but it only triggers after an attack, meaning unless you have a relic weapon that can attack and not feed you're renowning post-combat. You've mentioned finding Vanquisher's Blade slow, so maybe Reinvigorate? It provides you with a pseudo fast spell removal if you use it to block, and most people won't expect any fast speed interaction from Justice outside of Finest Hour.
Cool deck idea, I like seeing Mono decks cause you never get colour screwed.
For your first question, I would say that Sediti's card draw gave me staying power in several games that I was losing or going even in. I didn't keep track because I was in a grinding frenzy, but as I mentioned in my write-up, I'm confident that out of all the games that I got to play him with the Onslaught proc, I only lost about 3 or 4, and he came out in probably 30 of my 50-ish games.
Regarding Amilli, I really like the card, but for what I was facing in the meta, I didn't think he would have given me what I needed. There was so much removal between Stonescar Midrange and the plethora of Control decks that I didn't think he was worth including. Sediti gives an immediate advantage when you get him out regardless of him staying on the board, and that's ultimately what mattered. Now, I didn't test Amilli at all, that's just why I didn't include him initially. I definitely think he could have a place in here, I just need to test it more.
I also felt Harsh Rule was kind of weird in the main board, and after crafting 4 Pristine Light, I think I might experiment with some of those while keeping the other Rule in the Market.
And about Hojan's Renown proc, the Reinvigorates are a good idea. I guess I didn't really see Hojan's Renown as a directly important part of the strategy, but I think adding that might be beneficial. I mostly got all the value I needed in the Empower alone, but I'll try out Reinvigorate a bit and see how that works!
Thanks again for the comment and suggestions! It definitely is a work in progress, after all.
Amilli is kinda wierd against control decks in that you want to hold him back until they run out of gas and drop him to win. I usually lead with Jotun Feast-Caller, which proceeds to soak 2 removals and then drop Amilli. When he sticks it's gg usually.
If you renown Hojan and he lands, no aggro deck can come back from it. That and Palace making permafrost trash combined to kill aggro (before Dark Frontier). If you get that regularly you may not need Harsh rule main to catch up. I'm testing Reinforcements (new card that locks spells for 3 turns with onslaught- for each unit that attacked, that many units get that much attack/health on top of your deck" in a Rakaggro shell atm, and I think it'll just wreck people when on the play. Pristine light looks cool too for a controlling style or clearing enemy fatties.
Sounds like a solid deck, though! Personally, I'm intentionally avoiding Hooru and Palace out of principle. I love Mono White in MTG, and I'm trying to carry over the same feeling into the multitude of Justice decks I've been working on, so I want to avoid other colors if I can. But Hooru is looking pretty strong right now!
I feel like Pristine Light's Onslaught can be really potent as well. Like with Sediti, if you attack and then throw it out, you can replay him later to get another Onslaught proc, and other summon abilities can be used like this. Sediti and Light have become two of my favorite cards in the whole game, so I'm enjoying Dark Frontier to say the least!
I love dark frontier. Two words: Ice Bolt. It single handedly resurected Skycraggro, which is by far my favourite deck. I'm an aggro player at heart, so when aggro became useless I switched to various Hooru shenanigans. Now aggro's back I can't wait to try a Rakano/Combrei list with the new cards.
Edit: after extensive testing the deck runs into a problem: if it can run both 5 drops we flood way too often. If we don't flood we can't support both 5 drops. Sediti is being moved to the market and Amilli is coming back to the main. Keeping Reclaim in the market means we can still fetch a Sediti as gas in the long game when we have all influence.