DogScar (Anti meta Stonescar Control)

(before reading, - the deck works more or less the same if you swap kennelmasters with grenadin drones.)

This is a deck I always wanted to play, but never found how, as the stonescar card pool is quite shallow in regards to the lategame. Thanks to the idea of ItsTheFark of adding Shadowlands Feaster I found the last missing piece, and here it is: a stonescar full control deck in all his glory!

It is also a good meta choice right now, as it has really good matchups against every deck planning to utlize the void (makto or scream) and has a 7 sweeper package to go toe to toe with aggro. The weakness is combrei, or time midrange, thankfully not a problem right now.

Other than that, as an old draw-go control afictionado, I'm glad a deck like this is viable, as this version of it proved cabable of a 65% winrate at around rank 200 masters. I hope you will also enjoy it!

How the deck works:

Play it as a purely reactive control deck, you are not the aggressor in any matchup, apart from temporal control.

Your early game consist of removals, sweepers and reactive creatures which scale up to turn 7. The lategame consist in outlasting the opponent via card advantage, which, in this meta is surprisingly easy to do. Most late-oriented deck rely on the void as a resource, and with Madness , Statuary Maiden and [Shadowland Feaster is not too hard to trasform their resource in your resource. (hi makto.) Also card with health reduced to 0 by Stray into Shadows don't trigger vengeance.

I tend to play Statuary Maiden quite proactively, as it is hard to answer cleanly apart from snipe, but never Vicious Highwayman. In this deck it is not a means to aggress the opponent, but rather a utility tool. Play it when you need the ping or the heal.

Against midrange or control I tend to play the waiting game, using discard to pick apart the opponent hand and doing things like wait for 6 mana and play a creature with devour out to bait removal.

The key to playing the deck is knowing how much you can afford to wait. Against feln, for instance, you know when (sadly ) take risk and go face if they can get a champion of cunning in the void, as you don't beat vara into champion.

Against aggro is easy, use eveything, pray to survive, if you reach turn 6 with more than 6 health you win.

Substitutions:

-2 kennelmaster

into either:

+2 grenadin drone

+2 dark return

(this one is a test)

-2 amethyst waystone
-1 fire sigil

+3 seat of cunning

If you want to bathe in glory and try the original version of [s]dogs and witches[/s] add:

-1 (or 2) shadowlands feaster
+2 The Witching Hour

Deckbuilding decisions:

Kennelmaster : I love the card, and surprisingly, in this deck is almost good. Almost but no more than a grenadin drone I guess, but if you have spare vials I would recommend it. It is mainly a cheap sacrifice activator for when you don't draw the waystone, or a removal/silence bait with devour up, but sometimes it just randomly wins the game, when you and your opponent are in topdeck mode or against torchless rakano.

No banner: I didn't like having depleted sigil with such low power requirements (all deck work with fire 2, shadow 2), so I tried adding the most undepleted sources as possibile. I am not sure about the amethyst waystone, against aggro they are really bad. Possibly 2 seat of cunning are better than them, to have more scout in the lategame.


I would like to write more about the deck but this is just the first version, feedbacks are needed! I will be glad to answer any question here in the next few days.