Strange Machinations

Years ago, someone asked me if Strangers could be a decent deck in Gauntlet. For the longest time, the answer was absolutely not! But a lot has changed since then, we have access to better power cards and influence fixing now and a few useful new additions to the card pool. I have been working on a lot of iterations of this deck for gauntlet these last couple of weeks, and each had their strengths and weaknesses.

Five-faction strangers, while incredibly powerful when things went well proved to be too inconsistent for a format that necessitates going 7 wins often enough to be worth the time spent. I had to make a lot of concessions like running Horus traver and other low power influence fixing strangers and that took away from the threat level of the deck.

Primal cards were the biggest loss in this build. Linrei's Stranger is an absolute house, providing an immediate impact to the board and continuous pressure. Permafrost and Ice Bolt are terrific removal and a little better than what this version runs. You also get access to flying for your strangers. I will continue to work on builds with primal, but I do not have a consistent one yet.

That said, this Time Shadow Fire build is what I have settled on. Part of what makes a good gauntlet deck is being able to close out games quickly. By sticking with these three factions we get to run the most aggressive Strangers up to 4 cost in the maindeck, and 5s in the market, with only 25 power plus one spell with inscribe in the main.

Eremot's Machinations being back at 5 cost means we can get it with Crack the Earth again, and that is key. Also important is to be able to sometimes play it with only 4 power plus our Auralian Merchant as there will be games where we draw the minimum amount of power and still need to function.

Machinations, along with Strange Navigator give the deck the ability to trade in combat on the ground, and then come back with a vengeance! Magnificent Stranger can sometimes cause you to not have any 1 drops to get back from the void, but the cost reduction is still advantageous. You can potentially get back a Strange Burglar as your two drop, a Determined Stranger as your 1 drop and so on. These units are going to hit the board, pump each other and have overwhelm too! Always check your void and board to be sure of the costs of everything when deciding whether to pull Machinations. Battle-Tested Stranger is your other main go to for when you have a solid board already.

So what else does shadow offer us? Strange Burglar is getting tagged again in this write-up for emphasis. The card packs a punch and can also offer card draw on top when the situation necessitates a longer grindy game.

Spiteful Strike is absolutely essential, I tested from 0 to 4 copies, and there were games where I would draw 3 and was always happy to use one. The correct number is 100% to run all 4. I trimmed Exodus down to 1 copy as well as a Torch, and Sinister Rumors to fit them. Exodus is there as a way to break permafrosts, grant a board buff but most importantly also being a depleted power with inscribe. I wish I could fit 2 again but the Spiteful Strikes were the difference between life and death.

A lot of cards are fairly self-explanatory, we play the Strangers we have in our factions. Condemn is here as a two of to add two more ways to pull some critical relics that shore up glaring weak spots. Sandstorm Scarf and Infinite Hourglass proved to be essential as early builds were getting overrun in the air, and our units stunned left and right. The ping on the condemn is usually good enough that drawing one in the other matchups is not that bad anyway even if you don't end up pulling a card with it.

Diplomatic Seal is rarely included these days especially in 3+ factions but our influence requirement is only FTS so it works well here. Technically you might want a second Time influence when you pull Cloudscraper but that is a corner case as the card is usually used when needed to hit a power drop. But sometimes, burying a huge flier is the way to go.

Overall, this is a really fun deck to play, and it is quite consistent. Great for a change of pace. But, it is slower and not going to give you the same gold per hour that running the big three Justice cards will (Unseen Commando Helena, Skyguide Valkyrie Enforcer.) There is a reason those cards make up the core of so many strong gauntlet grinders. When you don't run those, you have to account for a lot in deckbuilding (like the condemn package in this deck!)

I've had a lot of fun playing this, hope you enjoy it!