Frenzy Crown

This little project actually started as a Haunted Highway deck, but slowly transformed into this. Early on, it became apparent that Haunting Scream is just too slow and clunky in the current metagame, but Tormented Crown stood out as the real deal that I ended up working with more. I saw the goals of Crown also matched up nicely with Feln Adept and Plunk: ping them constantly, jockey for early position, and play an aggressive game that lends itself to having actual fuel for the late game instead of burning out fast.

A few tips for playing this deck:

1) In addition to some functional power, you should redraw for hands that have some sort of plan. That's true for every deck, but in this case, your plan here usually revolves around one of the following: Plunk, Feln Adept, or Crown. Different cards support those strategies: Condemn works really well with Crown and Feln Adept, Permafrosts work well with Plunk but less so with Feln Adept, etc. Make sure your hand has a coherent plan going forward, because otherwise the deck will do almost nothing.

2) You can play Tormented Crown at the end of the turn/post combat and it will still tick up if the enemy took damage that turn. In addition, Tormented Crown is really special in that it becomes active "after three turns where the enemy player took damage." What that means is that you can also hit them on their turn and that will count. If you hit them the turn Crown comes down, hit them again on their turn (with Condemn), then hit them again back on your turn, you'll have it activated by the time it makes back to their 2nd turn.

3) Keeping 2 power open on their turn with a Condemn in hand is quite strong. Ruin is in instead of Bore for part of that reason, as you often only need to hit 1 relic, and you really can't afford any extra time to be Bore-ing things in this deck. The real power comes from Swift Refusal, and gives this deck a tremendous amount of power, stopping all manner of Harsh Rules and other slow wipes that send you packing. As with the above tip, you can also use it to hit a Crown proc at the same time.

4) Feln Adept is not only a drawing machine, it's also a win-condition later in the game. The +2 attack comes from every Frenzy trigger, not just the first. I know that's obvious, but it is easy to forget about when you're so used to only using it to snag one card. Late game, lines of play like Wump (or another yeti while Wump is out) + multiple Torches or Condemns to face will push the Adept to +6 or +8 strength, not to mention the damage you got from hitting them in the face multiple times with your triggers. I've dropped people from over 20 life when I had x2 Feln Adept's on board and a bunch of ping's in hand.

5) This deck is not forgiving. You need to constantly be keeping track of influence and power sequencing, weighing whether to use burn spells for face or units, planning Crown usage, and mistakes will often cost you games as you really are on a clock to get control of the game. But don't give up!

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FAQ:
- Why not Jekk? I like Riva over Jekk. Jekk costs resources you just don't have, doesn't fly, doesn't charge, and is really bad without a sigil. He is still a fine card in many decks but I like him less and less as the metagame evolves, and he was in this deck for a while until I replaced him with Riva, who has been tremendously better.

- What about the Market? I tested the market a lot, but I think the one that could be changed is Pitfall Trap or Dark Return. I do think you want a frenzy trigger in the market, but I could be wrong, since Condemn is, itself, a frenzy trigger. I also think Pick Clean is worth considering, but unfortunately it doesn't always help against Katra as much as it should.

- Why so many crests? You need to find specific cards. You also aren't full aggro. I think it works out better this way, but I wouldn't put it against you to try taking out some/all of them.

- Isn't this all going to change tomorrow with the release of Enter the Arcanum? Probably. But I was very pleased to make a Crown deck that didn't just live-or-die by sticking a Crown. I felt this was a real enough deck to share even before the metagame changed, which should tell you how good I feel about it.

- So, is Highway dead? Yeah, unfortunately. But this gives a lot of the same feeling!

Good luck and have fun!