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Erik9099's Deck

Piloted by
Erik9099
The Barbarian Camp

+13

Cost Curve

Type

Faction

Tournament Information

Details

Shiftstone Cost
Does not include campaign cost
39,750

Premium Cost
204,000

Influence Requirements
4 3

Power Sources
16 19 9

Power Calculator
Shiftstoned Icon View Deck on Shiftstoned

Deck Rarities
9 29 26 7

Card Types
9 6 38 1 26

Contains Cards From Campaigns
The Tale of Horus Traver [Set1002]
Dead Reckoning [Set1003]
Homecoming [Set1005]

Archetype
Unknown

Added
May 26, 2019

Views
10,746

Eternal Version
Dark Frontier

BBCode For Comments

Deck URL

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Comments

Serus Eternal Version: 1.46.10
Hi Erik! I’m a bit new to the game and just getting into Control here myself (please forgive any ignorance) but I had a question about the deck. Why is it that you have 4 Jennev Merchant’s in the deck and only 1 Rime Conclave Smuggler? Wouldn’t it make sense to reverse those quantities since most of the market is B/G?
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.10
Hi Serus,
Please feel free to ask me any question you want, I'm always happy to answer. If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out the eternal discord (should be easy to find with a quick google search), you can find lots of advice form the best players in the game on anything from expedition to ranked to draft, as well as the latest news from DWD on expansions and tournaments.
As for your question, Jennev Merchant is just as able to fetch Hooru cards like Korovyat Palace out of the market as Rime Conclave Smuggler. Jennev merchant can fetch any card from your market that has primal influence in its cost, the card doesn't have to be mono-primal. In the same vein, Rime Conclave Smuggler can fetch any card that has primal OR justice in its cost, so it can fetch mono-primal cards too. Since they can both fetch all 5 of our market cards, the tiebreaker that makes jennev merchant better is that a 2/2 aegis is usually better than a random 3/2 (the onslaught on the smuggler is very very rarely active).
I hope that answered everything!
Erik9099
Serus Eternal Version: 1.46.10
Ahh okay, thanks for the reply!
RemiErrebus Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Great Deck! but i got a question.Why jenev And 1 Palace and Not Winchester merchant and have palace and sanctum in both Deck and market?+ Why not the knife that goes to 0 mana when your under 10 life?
Erik9099 Edited Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thank you!
I'm playing Jennev Merchant over Winchest merchant for a few reasons. First off, a 2/2 aegis is far stronger than a 2/2 flying. Winchest merchant will generally get torched or annihilated, since your opponent has a ton of dead removal in hand, while jennev merchant either forces them to spend their entire turn removing her or is removal proof. I also think that there are some very strong primal market cards, primarily Scourge of Frosthome and Royal Decree that you don't have access to in a justice market. Royal decree in particular feels key to winning many matchups (combo and control), and is usually very good in any other matchup as well. I could pretty easily play 3 copies of Korovyat Palace in the maindeck already, I'd just have to cut the smuggler. The reason I only have palace in the market is that it's a very slow card, and we're already a very slow deck. With 4 strategize, 4 wisdom, 4 privilege, and 4 honor, we can't really afford to play more slow card draw in palace, and palace only affects the board if we have a sanctum in play. Besides, the first palace is generally enough to win if you have a sanctum in play, and if you dont then palace is a 6-cost wisdom of the elders, which is bad. Lastly, the reason I have all 4 sanctums in the maindeck is that its just a very good maindeck card. Playing one in the market would be kind of like playing Vara, Fate Touched in FJS's market. Sure it's one of your best cards, but you just want all the copies in the maindeck to save your market for more conditional cards. Plus, sanctum (unlike palace) is a spectacular defensive card, since it just locks down the ground after a turn or 2 of being in play.
Lastly, Stormhalt Knife is a card I experimented with a lot, and the list had 2 copies of it for quite a while. However, it consistently felt like it just gained me 5 life and did nothing else. It's very bad if you have to play it for 6 power, and when you get it for free you don't really want to attack a unit with it since you're already at a really low life total. I wish there were a better lifegain card out there in Hooru, but knife seems to be the best one and it just hasn't been good enough in testing. As is, face aegis and tight play is usually good enough to avoid getting burned out in the lategame, especially with Eilyn's Choice in the market to counter lethal flameblasts from stonescar.
RemiErrebus Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thank you very much for the detailed Response!!
DeJener8 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
I'm late to the party, but congratulations Erik!

I'll be honest, this is the first control deck I've played that made me really understand how control could be fun. Currently I'm using 3 Vanquish to substitute for Pristine Light, Channel the Tempest for Scourge, and one Rost and one Auric Runehammer for the two Sanctums I haven't forged. I'm hesitant to go all-in on Sanctums because of cards like Bore and Vision of Austerity. Vision I can beat by getting Aegis and establishing control ASAP, but what's the best way to fight Bore (and Fire decks in general)?
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Hi, and thank you!
I'm glad you like it, control decks really are my favorite kind of deck, and I'm always happy to recruit new control players to the club :>
I would 100% recommend making the last 2 copies of Sanctum, as it's the main win-condition of the deck. It just locks down the ground against most anything, and will quickly kill your opponent for you. It does get countered by Bore, and there really isnt much you can do against that, but it's not as bad as it might seem. The main deck playing bore at the moment is Stonescar, and Stonescar has a plethora of strong market cards against you. Flameblast and Vicious Highwayman are two of the most common ones. For them to get bore, they need to forgo getting one of these other deadly cards. Although it really hurts to have your 5-drop be answered by their merchant + bore, the fact is that it's actually not that bad. Although sanctum helps a ton in winning the game, you dont actually need it to win. You can just play a traditional control game: draw cards + play removal. Eventually you'll find another sanctum or a merchant and win anyways. The real tough part is winning when they do get the Flameblast, in which case there are a lot of tips I can give you. Saving face aegis for the critical turn is a good one, as Stonescar has a lot of ways to pop aegis for free and you want to get as much value out of it as possible. Holding up removal every turn so you don't take damage from their units is another good one, although you sometimes need to just play a sanctum and pray you survive. If possible, try to use your sanctum tokens to end the game instead of prolonging it, as flameblast will always be a threat. Getting Eilyn's Choice or Royal Decree to answer flameblast will often win you the game.
quietEC Edited Eternal Version: 1.46.6
First and foremost, congrats on the tournament win! How do you feel this deck would do against an aggressive or midrange Combrei deck running Stand Together, Avigraft and Sword of Unity?
Erik9099 Edited Eternal Version: 1.46.6
I faced an aggressive/midrangey combrei deck in the tournament. Iirc, I when't 2-0 against it. I've also faced aggressive/midrangey combrei decks on ladder, and they've felt like a fairly easy matchup. Not only is hailstorm devastating for them if you play it early to sweep away 2 units, but once you land a sancutm they have basically 0 ways to win anymore. Avigraft sounds somewhat scary, but they have few ways to pop a face aegis, so I'd recommend getting a face aegis before making any sanctum tokens if you think your opponent has avigraft. Also, holding up ice bolt to kill the sanctum token in response to it being targeted with avigraft is a strong play.
BHV Eternal Version: 1.46.6
What are your thoughts on Larai, the Appraiser in a deck like this? It's great for the mirror, and blocks all relevant 3-4 drops but Vara, Vengeance Seeker and Champion of Chaos. It wrecks opposing sanctums when not removed and tutors for Sanctum on one twist.
Erik9099 Edited Eternal Version: 1.46.6
My #1 concern with larai is that she's going to be a removal magnet. One of the big strengths of playing unitless control is that all of your opponent's removal is just dead. If I add larai to the deck, suddenly all the useless copies of Annihilate, Desecrate, Ice Bolt, Equivocate, Valkyrie Enforcer, etc... get to trade for one of our cards, whereas they would otherwise be near-useless for our opponent. Even torch will get her if she blocks a 3+ power unit.

Even disregarding the removal issue, I still think larai is a bit too slow. This deck is full to the brim with slow durdly cards; we have 4 Strategize, 4 Wisdom of the Elders, 4 Privilege of Rank, 4 Honor of Claws, and 4 Svetya's Sanctum that all don't impact the board when we play 'em. There really isn't any more room in the deck for durdly cards, you're already spending tons of power on drawing cards, you can ill-afford to spend more power twisting larai to get sanctum. Larai can block against some decks, but most of the time she'll just get flown over or attacked through by deadly units.

Lastly, I really dislike playing units that I want to keep alive in a deck with harsh rule.

Not sure how she wrecks opposing sanctums - her ability does not stop sanctum from making tokens as far as I know. I'm fairly certain her ability only stops opponents from activating relics, like Cauldron Cookbook, as opposed to sanctum which is just activated automatically. You could play 1 copy of avigraft to tutor up, as avigraft does stop sanctum, but for all the reasons I've already stated I think she's just not good enough.
I applaud you for thinking of ways to use off-meta cards though!
BHV Eternal Version: 1.46.6
I was under the impression that she stops anything a relic does, but activate is in the wording so I get that she might not stop sanctum. In that case she doesn't do enough. I like most else in the deck so thanks for that.
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
I don't know for sure to be honest. However, even if she does stop sanctum I'm still not sold on her. Cheers though!
Tinkady Eternal Version: 1.46.6
How important would you say it is to have Pristine light #1-3 and Martyr's Chains #2?
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
The second martyr's chains is not super important. It's nice to have as a lategame finisher, but it could easily be a 6th merchant without too much trouble.
The pristine lights are quite important though. You could maybe replace one of them with a vanquish, but I wouldn't recommend going below 2 copies, and even the 1st vanquish is a downgrade. Pristine light often nabs 2+ units, making it very difficult to replace. If you absolutely can't afford to craft pristine lights, then vanquish is the card to replace them with. However, I'd highly recommend making as many as you can - they're extremely powerful and important in many matchups.
Aesthetic Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Wouldn't rather see anyone else win this. congrats my dude
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thank you so much :)
pseudometapseudo Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Great list! Could you maybe elaborate on two things:
How did you decide on 5 as the number of merchants? (as opposed to 4, 6, 7 or 8 merchants)
Why did you include the Hailstorms? I feel like there isn't much Aggro in the meta and Stonescar, the closest thing to an Aggro Deck right now in the meta, does not have many targets for it.
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thank you :)
I'm happy to elaborate:
I played around a lot with the number of merchants. After testing, I was pretty certain that I wanted somewhere between 4-6 merchants. You usually want the first merchant, but they are fairly clunky to make use of, so you usually dont want multiples against something like stonescar, especially since the deck is already quite clunky due to all the card draw spells. I ended up on 5 merchants, mostly because the 3/2 body on the hooru smuggler is far worse than the 2/2 aegis body on jennev merchant. I could easily see going up to 6, but 5 has been a good number so far. tldr: I don't have a real explanation, 5 merchants just feels like the best number atm, though 6 is also quite good.

As for hailstorm, I mostly included this card to target Hooru Fliers, which I thought was one of the deck's hardest matchups. Hailstorm kills all but 2 of the units from hooru fliers (pacifier and sediti), which basically makes it into a 3-cost harsh rule. Hailstorm is also very strong against combrei, another deck I faced in the tournament. Lastly, although hailstorm is not amazing against stonescar (only kills instigator, warleader, merchant, and highwayman, and warleader dodges it if it gets a hit in) it does trade for a 2-drop most of the time, and sometimes gets a merchant + a highwayman. The hailstorms basically replaced permafrosts, which were a bit better against stonescar but a lot worse against fliers. Hailstorm is extremely bad with sanctum in play, but it feels necessary for surviving the early onslaught. It's also quite strong against praxis pledge, which is one of the better decks atm, as well as skycrag and rakano aggro, which are ~T2 decks atm and will likely be seeing more play as both are good-ish against hooru control.
KazePlays Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Solid list, congrats on your win.
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thanks!
Canepis Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Congrats!
Do you think this would still be a correct choice for the ECQ Showdown ? i wasnt really sure if i was going to make the cut for top 32 so i took a break from the game until they send me the confirmation email so now i need to test 24/7 some deck and your's seem simply amazing!
Erik9099 Edited Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Congrats on qualifying for the showdown, I wish you luck!
I truly have no idea how the metagame is going to change now that I won with this deck, but I do know that people are going to be gunning for it, so you're likely going to be in for a rough ride if you take this exact list to the tournament. However, it's an extremely resilient deck, and when played correctly you can overpower almost anything, so if you're confident in your skills then by all means, go ahead. Just be aware that the metagame is likely going to be far more hostile to control than it was during the masters challenge. If you try this on ladder and adapt to the strategies you see there you might be able to change the deck to be more resilient to the anti-control cards people will be running.
Regardless, thank you for the compliment, and I hope I was helpful :)
Canepis Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thanks for the rapid response is great to see someone truly devoted to the community. Thanks for the advice I believe if I test enough this days it should be enough i'm really a control fan and your deck is a hard cintrol one so that makes it even better. Dont know if it's too much asking but wednesday maybe i can contact you via eternal to talk about the changes i want to make to the deck based on my testing or via other media at any time you got available. Regardoess thanks for the response and advice! I'll do my best.
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thank you, I'm also a huge control fan :)
I'm easy to reach on Discord, if you @ me on the Eternal discord I'll get back to you the same day and we can chat a bit about any changes you've made.
Cheers,
Aredor Eternal Version: 1.46.6
I'd love to hear about these changes, as well. I absolutely love the deck, but I do struggle a bit on ladder.

BTW, Erik, it's awesome that you take the time to reply to everyone so extensively! You're a gem of the community.
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
So far I've only made minor changes to the deck, and I've posted the updated list here on EWC (shouldnt be too hard to find). With everyone gunning for the deck right after the tournament win, the ladder meta may be a bit harsh at the moment. I have still been having success with the deck on ladder however.
Thank you so much for the compliments :)
Knighthawke Eternal Version: 1.46.6
svetyas sanctum and an impressive performance? Time to shamelessly netdeck
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
I approve :)
CityofZeus Eternal Version: 1.46.6
I've been playing since this game's creation in 2016. I'm not a great card player, but I've always stuck with this game. I used NotoriousGHP's Stonescar Nullblade deck to climb to D1 for the first time about a week ago. After playing literally over 50 matches and coming as close as one win away to crack master's. I then saw your tourney play, saw the deck, and had juuuuust enough shiftstone to craft this. I think you know how this ends. I'm 7 games in, 7-0, MADE MASTERS and now climbing the ranks. Thanks for this. I know everyone groans with Hooru Control but screw it, this bad boy helped me accomplish what I thought I couldn't do. Cheers!
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Oh man, I'm so happy for you :)
By the way, you've got a good eye for decks to use at the very least, GHP's stonescar list is very strong as well.
Congrats!
ThePlatypusKing Eternal Version: 1.46.6
So happy for you! <3
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thanks! :)
battlebeetle Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Wow talk about a dominant performance. Congrats!
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thank you :)
battlebeetle Eternal Version: 1.46.6
It didn’t seem like you used scourge of frosthome at all. Any plans to swap it for something else?
Erik9099 Edited Eternal Version: 1.46.6
I did experiment with martyr's chains (and 4 hooru smuggler instead of jennev merchants) instead of scourge. However, scourge is just a really nice ace in the hole to have in grindy games. It's also very useful to get against stonescar to keep from getting burned out, though getting to 10 power against stonescar is certainly no easy feat. It's true that I didn't really use scourge in my tournament games, but I also never faced another hooru control deck, which is the matchup where scourge really shines.

There also isn't really any other primal or hooru card that I can think of that'd be good in the market. It feels like all the bases are pretty much covered - maybe an anti-aggro card would be nice, but I don't really know of any great primal or hooru options. A hooru market would provide some interesting options like auric runehammer and stormhalt knife, but I think the 2/2 aegis body is just too much better than the 3/2 smuggler.
battlebeetle Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Thanks for the reply. After playing a bunch of ladder and reaching top ten masters with this deck i can report that I’ve used scourge enough that it does seem worth the slot!
Erik9099 Eternal Version: 1.46.6
Wow, glad to hear it!