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Skycrag Nico [masters rank -3]

Throne Deck By
Mail
Mail+7714
The Barbarian Camp

+11

Cost Curve

Type

Faction

Information

Hi, this is the deck I used to reach masters rank -3 in a very small number of games. It's relatively similar to the skycrag deck that darkrevenger used to win last seasons LCQ, except it abuses the fact that Nico, Urban Hunter does not have an influence gate to generate infinite card advantage instead of only +1. This list includes Know When to Hold 'em as a way to have access to more copies of Nico, and the rest of the deck revolves around continuously discarding and recycling her with 1 damage pings. One of the strongest things this deck can do is play out Autotread after drawing Nico, which can now deal infinite damage and gain infinite stats equal to your power without costing any cards from hand.

Here are some of the decks best combos:

Autotread + Nico, Urban Hunter
Autotreads ability both discards a card and activates frenzy, which means that if you use it to discard Nico you will immediately draw her from the void. You can do this repeatedly as many times as you want without spending any actual cards from hand, so the only limitation is your power.

Know When to Hold 'em + Nico, Urban Hunter
Since we're using Nico as a discard outlet and never intend to cast her, the five turn lock from kwthe isn't actually relevant. It allows us to have access to 8 total copies of Nico, which I think is the main reason to play skycrag over other frenzy decks like SS.

Crafty Occultist + Nico, Urban Hunter
This is a lot like using crafty with Jotun Hurler before it was nerfed, except you end up with even more card advantage from being able to recycle Nico and continue discarding her afterwards. The easiest way to recur Nico after discarding her to crafty is by inscribing Serpent Hive, which is why I would recommend generally playing crafty before you play a power in this deck. If you successfully discard Nico to crafty and then recur her, it's like you played a 3 cost 4/4 that drew two cards (which is a fairly solid 3 drop).

Eilyn, Hand of the Tempest + Autotread (+ Nico, Urban Hunter)
Eilyn is a card that has a pretty decent base rate as an attacking 4 cost 5/5 Flying, Aegis unit that inevitably casts Channel the Tempest. She's very difficult to remove efficiently thanks to her high health stat and keywords, and becomes ridiculous when followed by Autotread. The first activation of Autotread effectively pays 1 power to deal 6 (5+1) damage, and then every further activation is a rate of 2 damage for 1 power. Every time you activate frenzy also reduces the cost of Eilyn's ultimate by 1, so you can start to see how this curve puts on immense pressure while threatening lethal (or at least a lot of damage and value) the turn after.

Jekk, Mercenary Hunter + Nico, Urban Hunter
Jekk is another way to abuse Nico to pay for his discard costs while generating infinite value over the course of a game. It works the same way that Autotread does, so if you discard Nico then the damage he deals afterwards will immediately recur her from your void. It's also strong and often better to use Jekk on a sigil after you already have Nico in the void, since it deals more damage and still pays for his discard cost when you redraw her.

Kenna, Uncontained + enemy unit
U kill it and make a 4/5 which is kind of op

Details

Shiftstone Cost
Does not include campaign cost
56,650

Premium Cost
265,600

Influence Requirements
3 4 1

Power Sources
19 25 19

Power Calculator
Shiftstoned Icon View Deck on Shiftstoned

Deck Rarities
9 24 17 9 15

Card Types
33 0 21 1 25

Contains Cards From Campaigns
Shadow of the Spire [Set1087]
Stormbreak [Set1107]

Archetype
Combo Midrange

Added
May 19, 2022

Views
4,549

Eternal Version
Unleashed

BBCode For Comments

Deck URL

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Comments

Brobat Edited Eternal Version: 22.05.18
I've been brewing quite a bit with Nico, but it never occurred to me to just play the card without any Shadow influence. I expect it will be nerfed to require influence in the near future.
RumblerX Eternal Version: 22.05.18
Hi! I was curious, since Nico is unplayable outside of the combo what's stopping you from just cutting him to 1 and just using KWTHE to draw him up when you're ready instead of having a dead card in your hand? I imagine people are snap removing AT at this point, so having useless cards in hand seems rough. I get that he facilitates some other combos, but isn't just 1 all you need for all of this?
Mail Eternal Version: 22.05.18
I've found that I often want to draw Nico in multiples, there are some cool things you can do with 2 or more of them like discarding the first to autotread a unit and the second to hit face so that you can kill things without spending cards. Discarding both to crafty is also really nice, since it effectively draws you two cards, and in the worst case you can just etchings or merchant the excess Nicos away, so I think drawing the first few is too important to cut any.
Damnation6969 Eternal Version: 22.05.18
Idk if they will nerf much honestly patrick chapin is a huge fan of combo and since he seems to be leading the design space i think it would be unlikly nico or the other busted combos will see much change soon they will wait till after the 5k to see if its an issue which it probably isnt since the combos are slow this go around
Sunyveil Eternal Version: 22.05.18
Mail Eternal Version: 22.05.18
I think it's an interesting idea and maybe better than it looks at first since Nico is a solid card to draw off of his 4P effect even if the spell count is slightly low, but I would still be skeptical of running him without any form of primal acceleration since he is definitely very reliant on hitting certain breakpoints. If you end up trying it then I'd be curious how it does tho
Sunyveil Eternal Version: 22.05.18
I misevaluated the 4s; Jarrall over Eilyn. Jekk is too insane not to play.
DarkLou Eternal Version: 22.05.18
How dare you?? You misgendered Nico all the time!
😜😜😜
Mail Eternal Version: 22.05.18
I didn't mean to
😔😔😔
dbrugler Eternal Version: 22.05.18
maybe Nico is short for Nicole
Comment Deleted
ArrowofKira22 Edited Eternal Version: 22.05.18
Yeah I'm pretty sure Nico might get hit with a nerf like Krull, where you have to run shadow influence to get him back, rn he's just free card advantage without any downside in decks that easily can trigger frenzy or work with discard shenanigans and your deck does both. Well done friend and congrats to masters. :)
sto650 Edited Eternal Version: 22.05.18
They could also go the route of giving voidbound to anything discarded by Autotread. Or put a line of text on Nico - "If I'm discarded, give me voidbound." Thus requiring him to be played and enter the void by dying.
ArrowofKira22 Eternal Version: 22.05.18
Oh yeah that might be even a more direct way to tackle the issue. Good point.
Mail Eternal Version: 22.05.18
I think that's a reasonable nerf to expect ^^ there's a slight downside of not being able to run insignia, but I think it's easily worth it to have access to infinite resource generation

and thanks! I'm not actually masters, but I could see how you might be confused by the terminology. I meant that I'm in (masters rank - 3), as in a sort of math equation, where masters rank is a known variable and we're subtracting 3 from it. In the context of eternal, masters rank can be translated to a 13, so the simplified equation is this; (13 - 3 = 10). If we use the same method for translating masters rank into a number, 10 roughly turns into Diamond III, which is my actual rank :D
Thisisdumb Eternal Version: 22.05.18
Thank you for the deck and I'm sure the community appreciates it, but that's disingenuous.
ArrowofKira22 Eternal Version: 22.05.18
Well, got me. Math wasn't my strongest subject in school i suppose. Btw i was trying to transfer this deck to expedition and it turns out you can get even more crazy with the shenanigans with Nico, Tomb of the Azuremage works with him too and actually also digs through your deck if you happen to have enough frenzy triggers, which is Autotread. He's not in exp, but i bet in throne there might still be some broken combos. Maybe Nico should be once per turn to really stop the shenanigans.
Brobat Eternal Version: 22.05.18
I did some experiments with Nico, Urban Hunter + Tomb of the Azuremage. When the pieces are assembled you can churn through the deck very rapidly and set up a kill with either Wrath of Caiphus + Dichro's Ruin, Savagery + Nico, or just activating Tomb Ultimate for a big burst if all else fails. I would say the deck was pretty underwhelming but it was fun. I accidently killed myself by milling out a couple of times.