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Clash of Wills anti-meta

Expedition Deck By
Kivae

+3

Cost Curve

Type

Faction

Information

This season, I played exclusively versions of this deck as a response to Primal + Shadow (+ Fire sometimes) lists being popular, and people saying that Omniscience was broken. There were also enough decklists that sat back and played removal that having a low-unit deck made sense.
As the season went on, I saw less representation of those decks, but this was still enough to get me to D1.


Gameplan


Depending on the matchup, either we are spending our spells 1-for-1 with the opponent's units, and getting card-advantage from them holding dead-ish removal in hand. Or we are going face with our damage and then topping out with cards that hit for 5+ in the late game to close things out. How to spend your cards and when to transition to going face is matchup and draw dependent and takes experience to get right.


You can do fun stuff, like this:
https://i.imgur.com/R28dr0j.jpg



Tips


It's okay to not spend your power on early rounds even if you could remove something with Ignite so you can get better value from a better target, get Winter Tomb on-line instead, or have targets for your more expensive Liquid Flame that you want to play on 3.

For Ossuar Longbow, it's tricky to know whether you want a clear board to be hitting with it, using Winter Tomb to get value per turn (Which means you can't hit face with longbow), or slapping it on an early Mouth of the Hermit which can take over games fast.

Winter Tomb and Warding Beacon are great at hitting the opponent's Aegis. Just don't forget that hunt (From Mouth of the Hermit and Ossuar Longbow) will get blocked by their Aegis.

Keep in mind that even if they've been holding removal all game and you drop a Parapet Sentry that they get to remove on their turn, it still means their losing tempo and not spending all of their power on something else. It also gets you value on summon.

Careful, Winter Tomb on a unit with Lifesteal will deal 0 damage!

Clash of Wills is obviously nuts the turn after they play Omniscience, dealing 12 damage and refilling your hand, but it's also generally pretty good. Something to understand about card advantage is that in the most extreme mental-model, you just take your full deck and have it in your hand. In that case, you have access to every card, but you're still gated on how much power you have. And because the game is ending in a turn or 2 in either case, it is much less of a big deal to give both players 3 cards than you might think. That said, it makes it likely they'll draw counters to your spells, so plan to be using multiple spells in a turn or relics to close out the game.

In general, consistent life-gain or swarm is hard for this deck.


Matchups


These are loosely from easy to hard:

mono-Shadow - They play a lot of removal that is dead, there are times I won't play Parapet Sentry just to play around Abhorrent Revival. It's super easy to 1-for-1 and then burn face to win.

mono-Primal - Again so few of their cards are relevant, you can 1-for-1 most of it and get great value off of Ossuar Longbow, Flash Fire, and Clash of Wills.

Primal + Shadow - Most of their gameplan is to draw a bunch and play removal, and then have really strong units with Aegis close out the late-game. Tenacious Heron can be killed by weapons or Winter Tomb which helps us keep their Aegis off, Fallen Winter can either be ignored because they're so low you can go face, or throw Winter Tomb on him. Be aware of when they have power open to counter our spells, and play units/relics accordingly.

Hermit piles - Similar to the above, but Futility will 1-for-1 against us if they know to use it. Try not to play units into Severin, the Hermit, because they both give so much value or damage if they're removed.

Fury + Justice aggro - It's easy to 1-for-1 their threats, you can deal damage to knock off Relic Weapons, but Foxfang Katars is nasty, and they don't really have dead cards so it feels pretty draw dependent.

Veena - It's hardish because of their life-gain, but their units are pretty easy to remove. Be sure to handle Tinker Overseer on your turn before it becomes a 5/5. Sometimes Veena's Masterpiece strengthens their units such that you can't 1-for-1 and they're drawing cards, and most of their cards aren't dead which can grind you out pretty quickly.

Primal + Justice hunt - I found this matchup a bit hard: their cards are all proactive or counterspells. Many have static abilities that keep giving them value through Winter Tomb (Such as Olos, Elder Ranger and Quinn, Beast Heart. They can get Lifesteal, some of their units have Aegis, and they can get armor. The best chance is to remove units as fast as you can, so they won't have targets to copy with Mirror Image.

Ziat's Triumph - These are hard because they can gain life and be out of reach, and kill us quickly in the late game. They do have lots of removal cards that are dead, and don't have much card-draw. So as much as you can go face and get recurring damage off of weapons, the better. Often Lystia, Flighty Mistral comes down and walls out your attacking damage, or Winter Tomb is incredibly strong against her and they end up spending removal on their own unit.

Fire + Justice aggro - I'm not sure I've won this ever, their recruit off of Calm Instructor means that pretty early on they are up 1 unit over what you can remove. Mouth of the Hermit is a great blocker. I've tried Heavy Hail for this matchup but our deck ideally just runs single-Primal cards.


Card Choices


You could play this deck with more Primal to play things like Icy Scrying (Another way to deal with Aegis), Lipa, Witch of the Woods (We don't have great 3-drops), and Heavy Hail (Wins swarm matchups). That would probably be a better deck, and only means sacrificing Flash Fire trolling.

I've tried playing Caravan Delivery, but there aren't great Fire tech cards to use in your Market. In the matchups where I care about tempo, I think I just want to not be spending the extra 2 power.

I ran more Urn of Choking Embers to tech for PS decks, but it at best relevantly hits 2 (Not counting something I hit but don't interact with). There are PJ matchups where EVERYTHING has Aegis and I miss having more of the Urn, but it's such a loss to either be a card down in 1-for-1 or lacking damage when I need it.

Expedition Information

Expedition #29
October 18, 2023
Behemoths of Thera [Set14] Battle Lines [Set15] The Devouring [Set1145] Separate Ways [Set1155] Behemoths of Thera Reprints Battle Lines Expedition Vault Battle Lines Reprints Grand Excursion Save the Day Gareth, Veteran Lantern Colossal Rodent Altin, Bird Whisperer Surveying the Rift Morbid Deal Patrice, Outcast Queen Protective Crow Dran the Farmer Tripwire Trap Coerce Back to Back Nomnom, Epic Epicure Monarch Cloak Citycrusher Gekkota Menace Furious Accusation Aggressive Meeting Bounty Board Finneas and Finneas The True-Sight Map Eris Beastbane One Eye, the Huntress Unlikely Pack Tight-Lipped Ziat's Crackdown Defy Authority Steelwarren Noble Enormous Anura Corrupted Croaker Squash Belief The Hive Falls Invitation Eyes of The Hermit Krogar, Unburdened Rift's Edge Telia, Perfect Timing Altruistic Bonepicker The Beast Slicer Working Together Injustice Seek Refuge Steelwarren Rebel Lystia, Flighty Mistral Sky Race Gareth's Advice Scared Beetender Vara, Decisive Action Svetya, Demand Justice Talir, Looking Forward Eilyn, Battle Ready Queen Corrupted Riftborn Riftbreak Aeda, Heretical Forgemaster Ageless Knight Icy Scrying Listening Bug Marvelous Imperion Master Archivist Mogen, Demagogue Ooze Tower Unstable Hellion Zadia, Fearsome Outcast Zephyrus, Unparalleled Youngblood Guide Boundless Hunger Cuno, Localized Rewind Camrin's Sniper Rifle Deathless Lurker Led Astray Zora, First Responder Ancient Agreement Sparring Session Conscriptor General Rite of Purification Daisuke the Imposing Shade-Drinker Subdue Veena's Masterpiece Tenacious Heron Veena, Rising Queen First Shipment Murgo, Reluctant Councilor Fundraiser Sightless Tunneler Friendly Discount Feral Centipede Crisis of Faith Akalur, Hecaton's Chosen Akalur's Ravager Lost Traveler Proof of the Journey Paranoid Sheriff Well-Traveled Waystone Commander Ironthorn Evelina's Insight Ghodan's Takedown Velok, the Witherflame Alliance of Convenience Untapped Rift Mouth of the Hermit Omniscience The Rending Squall Abhorrent Revival Sky Hive Protector Winter Tomb Protective Embrace Phila, Honey Chef Marrow Cutter Steelguard Queller Night Terror Coslo's Advice View All

Details

Shiftstone Cost
Does not include campaign cost
23,950

Premium Cost
122,400

Influence Requirements
2 1

Power Sources
26 5 4

Power Calculator
Shiftstoned Icon View Deck on Shiftstoned

Deck Rarities
17 16 14 12 1

Card Types
9 13 29 0 27

Contains Cards From Campaigns
Separate Ways [Set1155]

Archetype
Aggro

Added
November 29, 2024

Views
797

Eternal Version
Separate Ways

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Comments

abbaabbaabba Eternal Version: 24.10.02
I respect that it's original and you put so much work into describing how it works.
Kivae Eternal Version: 24.10.02
Thank you