This is my favorite deck to play at the moment. Heavily inspired by "Arcanum Wisps", which you can see
here. Wouldn't go so far as to say it's Tier, but it's pretty solid and my goodness is it fun when it goes off smoothly.
I found the curve was a little top-heavy and reliant on cards like Dread and Sadistic Ritualist that just don't work fast enough to get you the game back when you're on the back foot, so instead refocused on cycling the little guys until they become not-so-little guys.
Pathlighter and
Nocturnal Creeper with
Xenan Initiation are your removal (as well as
Weary Spiteling to a lesser extent). Don't be afraid to kamikaze them into enemies early in the game, since you'll be getting them back later. There's nothing more satisfying than a Killer Pathlighter getting the Tribute bonus off of its own death 2-3 times in a turn while it gleefully wipes out a good chunk of your opponent's board.
That being said, do NOT sacrifice/kill off your own units too readily unless you have a
Dark Return,
Soulbringer, or
Shadowlands Guide in your hand.
Memory Dredger is great once you've established your board, but gives your opponent too much time to counter to be a card that can hold up the deck single-handedly. It's for that reason that I dropped Dredger to 3, rather than 4 copies.
Secret Passage pulls double duty, both helping you get your wisps into the grave -and- letting cards like Dredger deal with chunky blockers with the one-turn free Unblockable you get upon summoning it. It's also a potential win-con in the late game if you happen to accumulate a chonky Weary, Pathlighter, Creeper, or anything else.
Praxis Arcanum fits into the deck in essentially the same way that it does in the aforementioned Arcanum Wisps. It makes your already cheap stuff cheaper (or even free, in the case of Weary/Pathlighter), making it so that late game, your Dredger can fetch your Void Drummer, and your Guide is grabbing Creeper,
Dark Wisp, as well as your Killer one-drops. Enjoy your late game, zero-cost 12/12 Flying Killer Unblockable Weary Spiteling!
Arcanum also helps mitigate the speed problem with Memory Dredger and Void Drummer than we mentioned before by giving them Charge before they hit your board, possibly netting you a surprise resurrection/buff of one of your lil' beatsticks. It happens to combo especially well if you happen to get
Azindel, Revealed onto the board from your market. It's pretty dang fun to be playing 3-4 of your opponent's cards per turn at a discount of 3 because of your Unblockable Helici, Drummer, and whatever else you've managed to buff with Secret Passage.
The Market
The Market choices are to deal with big potential threats. Banish is there for quick removal if you didn't net a Killer Deadly wisp early, Decay is there for the
Adjudicator's Gavel or other grave-hate attachments like
Vanquisher's Blade.
Sandstorm Titan helps you stabilize if you get swarmed by flyers early. We've already talked about Azindel, but he synergizes well with Pathlighter's Infiltrate effect, and the fact you can use Guide and Soulbringer to grab his Helici back if they get removed makes him a useful edition. He's saved my butt more than once.
If there's a flex slot here, it's
Vara's Choice. I placed it here because I don't really have any reliable Silencing effects otherwise, and the Silence/bounce effect can help shut down a singular nasty threat. Open to suggestions for better options, though!
EDITS:
- Dropped Secret Passage and Praxis Arcanum to two.
- Replaced dropped copies for 2 Predator's Instinct to add consistency to the ability to give units Killer. It also helps to smooth out the curve.
- Replaced Auralian w/
Kerendon Merchant, for a couple reasons.
-- Gives me another Deadly unit I can drop Killer onto. If I have Arcanum out, I can even fetch it with Dredger!
-- Shadow has more tools from the Market that fit our deck strategy than Time does. Specifically getting Vara, Vengeance Seeker and
Grasping at Shadows helps us stabilize at midrange against fatty threats in the case of the former, and fetch some quick resurrection in the case of the latter.
- Dipped Primal at the advice of another user to get access to
Haunting Scream.
- Dropped the Praxis Arcanum for two
Dread. Haunting Scream makes them much more usable, and more often when I'm on the defensive, I need a charging Lifesteal unit than I need a site that I have to defend.
v1.4 Edits
- Lil Vara is too good with recursion to not include in the main deck, and adding 2 more Banish helps deal with
Adjudicator's Gavel mainly, as well as removal when I don't have a Deadly Killer on hand.
- Drummer is better with Scream, but has become circumstantial a lot of the time, so I've dropped it to two. Same goes for Secret Passage.
- I dislike the uncertainty that comes with giving opponents' card adv with
Twilight Hunt, but caved to using it because of the extra card + chip damage in a deck without a ton of Extra Draw options besides Creeper.
I tried your build, and I have a couple thoughts:
- I used Twilight Hunt before, but the extra card draw isn't worth giving your opponent the same thing. One of the strengths of a recursion deck is giving you card advantage because of your opponent using up removal on stuff that comes back at little to no cost to you, most of the time stronger. I'd go Predator's Instinct.
- I favor Devour over Cull the Deck for a couple reasons in this deck. It's one-sided card draw (you get it, opponent doesn't). You get an extra way to get stuff like Weary and Pathlighter into the grave so you can res them, and a little bit of healing at the same time.
- I personally prefer Kerendon over Auralian Merchant here because of the curve capping out at four, and giving you an offensive threat in terms of another Deadly Killer. One the traps this deck gets is when it gets on the defensive, it can be hard to turn things around. Auralisn provides ramp that isn't really needed here, and puts us into a defensive mindset. Kerendon, while fragile, gives us another res target, which allows multiple fetches. The options have a Shadow market opens up for us are significant as well. Vengeance Vara has saved my ass so many times, you grab Banish for most relics you'll deal with besides Chains, and Grasping at Shadows to give you another grave fetch option.
- Drop the Feln/Elysian Seats for Banners. With so few Sigils in the deck, it made things a lot less consistent in terms of acting on curve. I also dropped the Auralian Cargo to 2 because of aforementioned low curve, and it taking up slots that could be used getting our res/buff/killer loop established.