Featured on Meta Monday!
New experimental version found here
So this is a deck the excellent (now missing in action for several months) deckbuilder "Roxie" made a while ago.
Here is the original deck, with much good information on card choices/tech
This deck is probably - after the torch + HOTV nerfs - the most reliable gauntlet killer in existence.
It does pretty well in Throne,
but I don't play much Ranked, so that'll be up to you guys to decide.
The card advantage from Sodi, wingbreaker, Sodi, metamorph, spellshapers, etc, is just nuts and wins most games if you can start drawing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You want to mulligan for a teacher (best) or varret (almost best) or at very worst a Tocas, you need an early drop to block little guys else you will waste removal.
Get used to using Cirso to his best. He can kill (aside from aegis or buffed units) 3 of anything as they turn to 2/2's. If you have a fast removal, you can have him transform them all into 2/2's and then kill one, he will kill the other 2. Using killer with him is also great since he will transform the unit first!
Make efficient use of sodi's spellshaper. You ideally want to use it's spellcraft as for 4 you get equivocate, the 1/1, and usually a card or more from hitting enemy player. That said, using it early when you know you can hit the enemy player is great card advantage.
Remember that Savagery can be a finisher as well, if you have a big unit target a little guy the overwhelm will penetrate and finish enemy off quite often.
It may not be possible, but I am still trying to fine-tune this deck to the n'th degree.
Cards to experiment with changing are:
Disjunction in the Market.
This was Equivocate originally but I had a real hard time fighting Xenan Obelisk decks in G, and other relics in T.
Obelisk in market reliable people are saying they prefer Infinite Hourglass. Try it out and give feedback, we could make this change.
Borderlands Lookout/False Prince have been suggested, but I can't say they are improvements till ive tested. Can try yourself if you like..
The removal : should any of the 3's go to 4? Any other changes?
This deck takes a short time to get used to (specifically, when to save VS when to use your cards like spellshaper/equivocate/ice bolt) but once you have the swing of it, you can be unstoppable in gauntlet and very good in throne (as almost nobody plays this deck nobody expects it)
------------------------------------------
Any constructive criticism, experiment results, feedback, are all welcome.
*Swapped out Seek Answers from 2 Gnash, unrelenting and 1 equivocate. Testing in progress
*Swapped out the time sigils for amber waystones. We dont use any seats so why not?
*Swapped out an ice bolt and 2 varrets for 3 False Princes. Very happy with them so far.
See also this mono shadow gauntlet deck which works very well.
Or this Kairos Gauntlet Obliterator, still very strong despite torch and HOTV nerfs
Or this Big Combrei (little chains) deck which works great as well
Permafrost
x4
1
Savagery
x3
2
Equivocate
x4
2
Ice Bolt
x2
2
Teacher of Humility
x4
2
Varret, Hero-in-Training
x2
3
Auralian Merchant
x4
3
False Prince
x3
3
Gnash, Unrelenting
x2
3
Scorpion Wasp
x2
3
Sodi's Spellshaper
x4
3
Tocas, Waystone Harvester
x4
4
Sandstorm Titan
x4
5
Cirso, the Great Glutton
x4
5
Sodi, Wingbreaker
x4
Primal Sigil
x1
Time Sigil
x1
Amber Waystone
x4
Cobalt Waystone
x4
Crest of Wisdom
x4
Elysian Banner
x3
Elysian Insignia
x4
Emblem of Grodov
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
Anyway, let's go.
Infinite Hourglass - In short, a must. Deep Freeze is probably one of the most consistent, annoying and lethal decks in Gauntlet, or might just be my bias, I don't know. Also every primal deck runs Permafrost (as it should). 1 in the market is fine (more on that later).
Borderlands Lookout - I can't stress how good this card is for aggro. And for Gauntlet, it has even more uses. Torch bait. Fire decks always have torch (even if that's obviously not true, always assume so). It clears the path for (hopefully) Teacher, or Varret. It's sad against the mono factions, but those (other than Fire and Justice) tend to be the easiest ones, and it really shines on the "start with 5 influence each" boss (one of the hardest ones, and very frequent from what I played).
What I cut for those: Seek Answers (like I mentioned in my previous comment) and Ice Bolt (2 ofs currently).
Also, some more drastic changes I made:
Changed the merchant for Great Valley Smuggler. We don't really care about ramp past 5 (and we have Tocas if we want that), and this enables putting Savagery on the market (we want tempo, and 1 savagery is mostly enough, along with our Equivocates). Am trying the newly buffed Elvish Swindler (with Hourglass + Eye of Winter on main deck, 1 of each). Predatory Carnosaur too. It's a fat body and quick removal. Put a Seat instead of Banner, took out Gnash and Obelisk (haven't done much for me, again might be just bias).
Disjunction is a must and should be kept. Not only for Great Armory, but for some other annoying, common things (Deepforged Plates and Mantles of Justice, among others, were many a bane of my runs).
I personally focus mostly on the massive tempo play this deck has, and play accordingly (being as aggressive as I can). Knowing the AI decks inside out helps a lot (thus the conclusion I reached by using Borderlands Lookout). The merchant-smuggler change I made is recent, and am still testing, because maybe from playing old Stonescar and Skycrag aggro decks, a 0/3 really irks me.
Anyway, good job again, and keep up the good work. Let me know what you (and others!) think about the changes.
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/Dr86uksrLAw/sodi-sorry-experimental-version#comments
Those ARE pretty drastic changes. Keep in mind how many times myself and Roxie have played this deck and fooled around with it to get to this point.
That said, I will be trying SOME of the things you mentioned.
1) Hourglass in the market has been suggested before and tested. Personally I didn't find it as good as obelisk, but others prefer hourglass. Probably a personal preference thing.
2) I don't like the idea of getting rid of the savageries so much. They are so totally useful with several chars - Teacher (get it thru small blockers), Cirso (kill anything w/o aegis and do 4 damage to face), Varret (to get the last few damage to transform it), as a finisher, etc. I'd have to be pretty convinced something was worth changing for.
3) I don't like swindler with maindeck relics. A lot of the benefit of this deck is having such reliable useful cards so that you can usually plan with a good idea of what kind of cards are coming up. More diversity of cards means poorer reliability IMHO.
4) As far as the market it seems you've basically changed the whole thing except disjunction. Gnash is great for fliers (esp. things like matko), and with obelisk gives us a 3/3 killer each turn (at 8power) Obelisk helps gnash but also just generally buffs a bunch of units we have for late game (teacher, untransformed varrets, borderlands lookout if we put that in). That said, could you post a list of what you have in the market and explain even in short why they are there?
-------------
So I'd say i'll try out some of the changes but slowly, else you can't tell what is helping or hurting. Have you tried this updated version with gnash? Where would you say you would make room from? What changes do you think are the most important to try.
Messing around with crests+waystones VS seats+sigils is totally encouraged and feedback welcome.
Against players, eh, not so great in my experience, but against the Gauntlet, I have yet to find better.
You also liked my Mono S Gauntlet deck.
Yeah not many changes here right now, as Roxie is apparently gone I wanted to ressurect this deck since its gauntlet potential is off the charts, and see if we can improve it in any way.
Ill put a mention of your hourglass into the main text. - Though i do love having hourglass and Gnash, 3/3 killers per turn is great.
Yeah that one was great, as well, but this one is even better. Also, I never thought about the 3/3 killers the Obelisk can provide. Maybe I should try to experiment with Obelisk again, now that I'm really used to the deck. I don't get Infinite Hourglass all that often anyway, I just remember literally never getting the Obelisk before.
I'd still be interested in experimenting with the obelisk slot, but I have to say after a lot of playing this deck, it is surprisingly useful for buffing teachers, varrets, and tocas's into more useful units, in making the killers 3/3, etc.
By the way, its taken a hit with the torch nerfs and stuff, but I also have a pretty awesome Karios "Gauntlet Obliterator" deck. I don't think its as reliable as this one, but its nice to have something to switch with when bored.
The basics are to stay alive with all the awesome blockers and stuff, and then drop Kairos for the cards and then burn away.
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/oeG7Xb2dEYM/ramba-kairos-gauntlet-obliterator
You're such a cool person.
A few things. Seek Answers is bad. Either use Seek Power if you want the power, or something else if not. While its great when both you and your opponent are topdecking at like 10+ power, Seek Answers will most likely not find the answer you're looking for if you're behind. Also getting another Seek Answers from it sucks.
Ice Bolt is also dangerous in Gauntlet. You don't want the AI ramping or getting a color they need. Then again we don't have much choice for removal in Elysian colors.
I'm trying Borderlands Lookout out. Most of the time its a 2/3 for 1. Sometimes a 5/6 (hello, Strangers!) and Infinite Hourglass in the market (replacing Obelisk for now, because Disjunction is good vs the armory AI, and its one of the more annoying ones).
Also thought about Predatory Carnosaur in the Market, as a swift removal+body, since now that he's 6 he's somewhat better than before.
1st of all, I know in theory seek answers isnt a great card, but it has been useful in this deck. I will look into reducing it in favor of things we find more important once we determine what those replacements would be,Thoughts?
2nd, Ice bolt we kinda need, I hate the ramp effect (when its not the desperate on-your-own-units ramp) but since we use so much equivocate (spell itself and from spellcraft/shaper) we end up sometimes really needing just to take something out, I'm just not seeing alternatives.
3'rd Borderlands lookout is okay, but there's not really much I want to take out in favor of him. We do pretty well with teacher/varret/tocas against early aggro unless we get power screwed. It's an idea tho.
As far as replacing obelisk i'm hesitant. I've won many games by having a large number of units which get +2/+2 via obelisk. Its an important way to push through stalls.
----------------------------------------------
In summary, let me know what specific changes you find to work. We can look at making them official here if we both have good success with them.
P.S. I'm trying swapping the 3 seek answers for +1 equivocate and +2 Gnash Unrelenting (because we have such great muster opportunity with sodi's spellshaper!) Will let you know how it goes.
Hourglass seems more situational to me TBH, great for the Deep Freeze and decent for defense tho.
As far as equivocate, I know what you mean. I like having it in market too, but we hae so many removals including equivocate in main that if we can just draw a few cards we usually find one, where as i really dont want disjunction in the main.
This deck is meant to be improved upon and experimented with, ill put the note in the main text.
Yeah we can totally try to find something better than obelisk, but it has worked for me better than hourglass, maybe there is a 3rd option?
Some random options I can think of off the top of my head (not saying these are viable or better options, but just to get the juices flowing):
-Passage of Eons
-Striking Snake formation
-Crystallize (could be better for the board stalls, idk)
-Swift Refusal, Backlash, etc.
-Lightning Storm
-Mirror Image
Just things off the top of my head.
Also, I'm not convined that Gnash is better than Seek Answers here. I'm sticking with Seek Answers.
WEWLAD commented at length up top, maybe take a look at what he's thinking and between the 3 of us we can try some changes?
About the anti-seek-answers feedback, I understand where they're coming from, but I've used it for a long time and it's just too useful. I use it to get power or non-power almost equally across the board.