Cirso’s Late Stage Capitalism

I know what you are thinking, and yes. This is the Gauntlet grinding deck you have been searching for. This baby can give you what you need. Speed? Oh yeah, just look at those bodies compared to their costs. Consistency? You will be drawing so many cards that you will almost always have an answer to the AI’s threats while dropping your own to keep them pressed and desperate for breathing room. Stability? You bet. Even faster Aggro decks will hit a wall once you start gaining life and putting up bodies they can’t get past, then it’s just downhill for them from there. Fun? Best part, it is a blast to play this deck. You will be steamrolling the AI with lots of options and choices and more importantly rolling in gold in no time.

The main focus of this deck is a synergistic list that helps support your finishers like Champion and Cirso, with card draw and life gain that also act as threats on their own like Lunar magus and Beckoning Lumen. Those two are the cutest couple, but FOA introduced someone they just couldn’t keep their hands off, and now Dusk Raider is in on the fun. One of the best cards in the deck, far superior to Friendly Wisp which I often see in the same slot.

Dusk Raider gives you even more triggers from Lunar Magus and thus Beckoning Lumen, which keeps you alive while getting you closer to Cirso and other threats. And when you draw those, she gives them Berserk. If you wanna see something ugly, watch the AI squirm with a Cirso or Sandstorm titan swinging at them twice. Actually, it’s beautiful. Of course, all three are able bodied and hit hard on their own as well, getting the enemy nice and compliant and eating removal before your real killers hit the board.

Another great addition is Teacher of Humility of course. She needs no introduction, and even after her nerf is still a reliable and punishing mistress. With her weights out the opponent is a LOT less excited about nightfall, and she gives great early game pressure. For some reason the AI loves getting smacked by her, I have seen the computer just flat out not chump block my teacher, or even block the teacher that already infiltrated but not the one that hadn’t. They will kill her on sight, but if they do not have removal then she gets so many free hits, and I think it’s because the AI just values the extra card draw even with the penalty. I ain’t even mad.

So the goal here is to come out swinging with things like Initiate in turn one followed by a False Prince or Lunar Magus on turn two, then just keep ramping into Cirso or enough influence to have a flying 6/6 Champion. Or two.

And the market is a big part of this decks strength and consistency. You want to have a Cirso in there so you can get your threat on reliably, Accelerated Evolution can get finishing damage or a more reliable Teacher hit in, Equivocate is one of the best removal spells in the game, got a banner for obligatory consistency on your ramp and faction fixing, and Crystalize for the win. Seriously, that card wins games. And is why there are three of the Primal Merchant but only two of the Time. Yes, the Time Merchant is better and enables stupid things like turn three Cirso, but there are going to be many times you want to just clear the path for your units to alpha strike.

I have played this in over 10 Gauntlet runs successfully, with only a couple fails in between, but those were generally due to the RNG deciding I had won enough and only giving me 2 power over the course of like 10 draws. Not much you can do when the deck is stacked against you, but otherwise this inevitably will win almost every matchup against the AI.