Scorpion Madness

This deck started out as Clockroach folding back on top of the deck and in/out of the market, but once I started running infestation everything really began to click. I dumped more and more tricks until I got to this build.

You want to mulligan into Infestations, Teacher and Stinger. Ideally you'll have any 2 of these cards in your opening hand as you can expect your first unit to die to removal (and if it doesn't, w00t go to town).

Auralian Infestation is a very underused card and an absolutely amazing 1-drop for generating card advantage. You'll get 2 scorpions in play on turn 4. In this deck, Scorpions are:
- Swarm damage, rarely blocked and enabling onslaught. Xenan Obelisk for a closer.
- Mass removal, through Aegis even, after playing Striking Snake Formation
- Card draw when combined with Chalice
- A formidable blocker if you need to stabilize.

Getting 2 scorpions for the price of one means more often than not your opponent is spending 2 cards to deal with them. Doesn't do great in all matchups obviously.... grenadins can outpace you and SP even-handed golems can outfly you if their topdeck lines up.

The 5- and 6 drops here don't matter as much to the deck and you can feel free to substitute them in and out... most of your critical plays are in by turn 4. By the point you get to 5 power you already have a pretty good sense of where you're at in the game and the 5-6 cost cards are maintaining tempo at best.

Lida's apprentice and Living Example don't do much here either, they are mostly bait for removal but also fuel the Chalice, and right now I'm experimenting with swapping in Entrancer.

Your market access is pretty critical. Chalice is usually your priority to keep developing your field while drawing up. I have used every single card in the market in a match with this deck, which I can't say about many other decks I have made/piloted.

Unseal is mostly on hand for Harsh rules, but the environment on a whole is extremely removal heavy so having one of these to stall the opponent's plans is useful. I had refusals here first because 1-mana negate of a harsh rule just isn't conceivable to most opponents, but I had enough fast spells hit me at the wrong times that I moved to Unseal.

Initially I ran 4 Ghar too, and if you're running into a lot of SP golems I'd suggest swapping more in... its pretty satisfying to see them play Haunting Scream and Memory Dredger into automatic silence, and being able to shift into a silence of all units in their very full hand is cause to grin too. If you're only hitting golems every 4th deck or so I'd say keep it where it is.