EDIT: Updated version of this deck can be found here:
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/137jeNhwTyc/rank-7-improved-factionless-iron-furnace
A continuation to
the experimental factionless deck I posted previously. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting it to improve very much, but boy was I wrong. I quickly went from Rank 90s to top 20, with a silly win % record.
Cast Iron Furnace is BANANAS! Especially when every card in your void is factionless. You can start making free dragons as early as turn 3. With
Petition you are basically playing 8 Iron Furnace, and you can even set them up better by tutoring for Chairman's contract.
I guarantee that there is room for improvement, but this is a very solid starting place. All of the deck is centered around getting furnace active ASAP. Try to have a Chairman's contract in your opening hand. The power cards in the deck are more often your strongest cards, so that is why we are playing so many ways to fetch power. (we are also getting factionless cards in the void while we do so)
Recent change was to move Tools of oppression to the market, in favor for 2
Beseech the Throne and 1 Wrath. Depending on the meta, Tools may need to be brought back in the main. Like mentioned in the previous deck submission, "The deck works best when you go out of your way to gain no influence at all" having a 7/7 golem is better than being able to get a random card off Mercenary. He is just a 4cc 4/4 dork that gets cheaper by playing contract, or gets played on turn 4 along with a 5/5 dragon.
The Speaking Circle is fantastic as well. It's completely busted if you play it for 5 or even 4 power. And the The Queen of the Glass often makes it impossible to control decks to stabilize.
The deck is all about the first few turns, so mulligan a lot.
Ironically, our best matchups are decks that mill us. And there is a popular deck out there right now that allows us to trigger Furnace are early as turn 2.... Madness
Family Charter
x4
1
Snipe
x4
2
Beseech the Throne
x4
2
Petition
x4
2
Seek Answers
x4
2
Varret, Hero-in-Training
x4
3
Mask Maker
x4
3
Prism Golem
x4
4
Veteran Mercenary
x3
4
Wasteland Broker
x4
6
Caiphus, Wandering King
x4
6
The Speaking Circle
x4
Broken Contract
x4
Cast Iron Furnace
x4
Chairman's Contract
x4
Sacred Seal
x4
Seal of Devotion
x4
Sealed Writ
x4
Tempting Offer
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
If you want a card-advantage card, Traver's Farm puts a lot of colorless cards in your void and it has a nice payoff if it survives.
But here is the thing about that... I disagree with the direction of a few decks posted that add a color and modify the deck into a worse Furnace deck. It is important to maintain that strength and speed. Drawing and discarding won't make us any faster than turn 3 for the Dragons, but we can make the 3rd turn dragon play more consistent, by gaining access to a card like Seek Power. Gaining an influence actively makes some of our cards worse. This will be a strange analogy, but this deck would be similar to a quick Fire beatdown deck. It's not meant to play around things and try to stretch the game, there is no need to hold cards back. It's an all in kind of deck, either you win or you lose. Slowing the deck down even by a turn, would decrease the win % significantly.
I added Sellsword to the deck as one of the very first additions I made to test all the new cards, and while I agree with you that it is better than Varret overall, the idea of pushing the power curve up worries me a lot. The current metagame is very fast, and while Varret dies easily to removal, it has been a great distraction and fills the void with a factioness card for Furnace, and maybe eats a 3 damage spell that would otherwise go to our face. The only feasible way that we can threaten Varret's ultimate is by following it with a Maker, honestly though, we aren't relying on any of that for winning. It's just a ploy to help us set up Furnace, The Speaking circle and Caiphus. The few games I played at the beginning with Sellsword in the deck, I found it great at stopping single creature threats, but underwhelming against aggro when we are on the draw.
How has your experience been with shifting the curve up when playing again aggressive decks?
So we are looking at if a 4cc 3/3 decay or a 4cc 4/4 is better overall. I think the answer to that is a 4cc 4/4 is better for a few reasons. 3 toughness vs 4 toughness makes a big difference in a metagame where a lot of the damage spells do 3, it also works out much more favorably in combat math, like attacking into two 2/2s.
Edit: I guess a potential saving grace for the Mandrake, is that he shares a type with the Dragon from Furnace, so Mask Maker would pump both of them
Market can probably shift around significantly.
I'd say that there isn't a better card right now for that slot, but the more factionless cards we get, the more likely there would be a replacement.
Teeechnically, you can plunder a card into a sigil and trigger Veteran, but I don't recommend it.
I like Pumpwerks Monstrosity as a whole, but it actively makes our Iron Furnace worse, by giving the opponent a way to shuffle our void. The only other alternative right now may be Mandrake Similacrae, but I think that the +1/+1 is probably better than its decay + ultimate.