[Rank 1] Houseplant Beatdown*

*not actually a beatdown deck
Card Choices:
This is a deck built around the mandrake ultimate synergies. Merriest Mandrake is a powerful that suffered from consistency issues after markets became black. Merry, Invasive Creeper, Venemous Nightshade, and Vine Tangler all benefit from playing ultimate abilities and from having other mandrakes. This makes the inclusion of Vine Grafter and Shadowcreeper an easy choice. After that the choices for enabler get a bit tougher. Veteran Strategist may look odd be she's a good blocker and has a cheap ultimate. Lifespeaker is a little pricier but the rate is good and he helps you race decks with fliers. Darkwater Vines is an amazing rate but took a little work to enable. Shadowcreeper can enable it but it's slow and sometimes you want to save it. This deck is running 8 Vows to enable Vines. You want to sequence your power so you only ultimate when you have payoffs in play. Play slowly and think, this interaction screwed up world champion LightsOutAce the first few time he played the deck. Goliath Flytrap is expensive but has a powerful and free ultimate hence why I'm only running 2 copies. I'm running 4 Shadow Etchings because the deck needs more than 25 power and in the late game they can access the market. 2 copies of a Devour is a concession that you need a little more than 29 power but you don't want to flood and often have a used up Vines or Strategist to sacrifice. There's room for 6 removal spells and I opted for 4 Send an Agent and 2 Suffocate. Send an agent is versatile and efficient. Suffocate is an answer to Rolant and opposing mandrakes while also being good against aggressive decks.
Gameplay Advice:
For opening hands you want 3 power (2 is sometimes fine on the draw if you have a Merry and a Strategist or a Lifespeaker) and a turn 1 or 2 play. You also generally don't want more than 1 removal spell but sometimes 2 is fine if you have a Merry and an activator. Play out a mandrake as soon as possible to take advantage of the fate ability on Invasive Creeper. If you have no other mandrakes playing a Merry on 2 is fine but generally you want to save her for later to make sure to draw at least 1 card first. Don't just randomly activate ultimates you want to ideally trigger multiple mandrakes or at least a Merry. Most early turns should be spent developing mandrakes or on removal spells rather than on ultimating. Merry is always the exception, you just go crazy with her. Shadowcreeper's ultimate should be saved for especially scary threats like a Rolant or a big flier. Things on the ground just aren't often worth spending the time to kill and you are exposing yourself to the few things that can get through your plant army. For the market you want to think about what might be a problem and what could make you lose. If you expect fliers, then Slug is a good pick. If you expect a single threatening multifaction unit, then Express Route is a good choice. If you're facing a Know Thy Enemy deck, then you might want either Shoal Stirrings to bring back mandrakes or The Speaking Circle to go over them in a hard to answer way (Curtain Call is an acceptable budget option, I rarely include alternatives because I don't believe in it but I think it's hard to pin down an exact 5 best market cards for this deck). Krull is the most difficult card to play correctly from the market. You're rarely if ever paying 8 for him, you're using his fate. Because he deals you damage he's mostly for against slow decks. You can do tricky things with him such as getting back Vine Grafters and juggling him back and forth. He gets much better with a Lifespeaker in play.