Spider Sacs

Hey everybody. When I started playing Eternal, one card stood out to me: Torrent of Spiders). I knew I wanted to make a deck around it. After some time of weird unplayable jank I got into Masters using it. That was back in closed beta - a wonderful, simpler time when even the craziest deck could do it. Now it is time to pick the spider mantle back again and make it playable in the current meta. Without further ado, here’s the deck, **Spider Sacs**. I hope that you will find it fun and maybe try it out.. Since the deck is always in fluctuation and always evolving, I will welcome any feedback, as I'll welcome any insight.

The deck plays differently depending on the matchup. Against control we play line similar to regular Stonescar aggro, trying to hit our curve and deal as much damage early on. After they wipe the board once or twice we try to deliver huge swings with Spiders and the Impending Doom. Flamestoker is an amazing card here, fetched as early as possible could result in massive swing. On the other hand we’ve got aggro decks. Here we aggressively trade creature-for-creature, and try to prevent them from ever building big enough board presence that rally would prove lethal. We’ve got much better late game than majority of those decks, thanks to our ability to reset our board position and the fact that Statuary Maiden stops a lot of their offense cold, while providing a huge benefit to us when we trade. Midrange ground based decks don’t really like our Deadly creatures, so we are worried mostly about Passage of Eons out of their Market. Unfair decks, well, kinda depend on what they are trying to do. I tried to fit as much utility in this deck as possible, so that you’re able to answer plenty of varied decks.


Tip #1: if you see any other deck playing grenadins, trade for them. Some of them try to set up a Rally, others try to sacrifice them to play huge game-changing cards. If you keep them low on the grenadin count you are much better off. On the other hand, opponents will most likely try to trade their grenadins if you attack into them, fearing Rally or Bandit Queen of your own. Use those trades to build up nice void to feed your Torrent of Spiders.

I’ve been working on it quite extensively and tested a lot of different cards and matchups. Here’s the data I can present:

Card Choices
Creatures:
-Grenadin Drone: Probably the most important card in the deck. Generates bodies for sacrifices, blocks early oni ronins, attacks en masse. Probably THE one drop of the game.
-Scrap Hound: As much as this is worse than some other power one-drops, it is a key player in the deck. Growing to 6/6 allows it to attack into Sandstorm Titan, and establish a board presence against midrange decks before we get our Spiders online. It is soft to Equivocate, but there is just so much we can demand from a one drop.
-Spark Hatcher: An incredibly powerful drop that makes opponent think twice on pushing the board wipe button. Alongside a single 1/1 it applies decent pressure to a control opponent, and forcing them to waste multiple kill spells is always nice. Great Combustion Cell fodder.
-Ixtun Merchant: Definitely the most powerful card for this deck to have come out of the Fall of Argenport. The deck is can sometimes be blindsided by certain strategies, so it’s always nice to have answer to them.
-Impending Doom: This is the least synergistic card in the entire deck, but it fulfills several major roles - blocks aerial units, which pose a threat to this deck, defends vs 4/x attackers, and attacks on stalled boards. Ever since the first iteration of this deck I’ve been adjusting count of this card and depending on the meta it went from 0 to 4. Currently sitting at 2, this is the card that we would like to exchange with something else the most. It’s our only attacker that doesn’t dodge Vanquish and is quite bad to us when put under Permafrost. It still is useful and blocks Rizahn, Greatbow Master/Icaria, the Liberator, so for now it stays. Unless something better comes up. It’s definitely on the suspect list.
-Statuary Maiden: It’s the Gorgon that could! Amazing card, I’m always happy to play it. Used to have just one in the Market, but I always found myself fetching her, and so I moved her to the maindeck. And never looked back. Stop aggressive decks cold, makes our Grenadins pose a legit threat alongside our removal, defends against huge attackers while dodging Vanquish, Torch and Hailstorm. This lady is amazing.

Attachments:
-Combustion Cell: A great sac outlets that along our practically endless supply of creatures (and Grenadins in particular) can ramp us into more powerful plays. Dropping our Impending Doom on turn 3 or Flamestoker on turn 4 can be really strong. Also can be used to sac stolen enemy units and generally feed Torrent of Spiders with that one more creature to tick over one more spider. I wish I could play 4th in the Market, but the deck CAN function without it, and our Market suffers from 5 slots syndrome already.

Spells:
-Combust: Staple of the Stonescar archetype. A great removal that allows you to trade one of your infinite tokens for a problematic creature. Or even better, alongside Madness it allows you to trade their creature for their creature. When I was playing in a meta with nearly all creatureless control decks I’ve cut on both of these cards, but they seem to be better than ever at this point in time. Can’t wait for that pesky Aegis to go away!
-Torch: Probably the best Fire damage spell, there’s not a lot that needs explaining here. 3 damage for 1 power is a great rate.
-Devour: Good draw spell that turns our small creatures into better plays. As with any of our sacrifice effects, great when you steal opponent’s creature.
-Quarry: When I first made this deck, it lacked good two drop. There was almost nothing to ( Combustion Cell and Spark Hatcher were far off in the future ), which caused awkward do-nothing games. Quarry fixed that problem. It allows you to find that missing link for your draw, or dig into an answer. A not-entirely irrelevant thing is that discarding a creature off this spell feeds your void and thus makes Torrent of Spiders stronger.
-Assembly Line: Staple of Fire token decks, it allows you to attack for 3, makes spot removal worse, feeds sacrifice outlets and can trade for opponent’s cards for fraction of a single card. Obvious 4 of.
-Madness: Alongside sac outlets it’s a powerful “removal” spell that allows us to get around entomb shenanigans. There’s nothing quite like hitting opponent in the face with their very own Inquisitor Makto and having the endless Revenge for yourself. Outside of sac outlets it allows us to do alpha strikes against huge lifesteal creatures or utilise their abilities.
-Torrent of Spiders: The namesake of the deck and the entire reason I made it. It is great at creating board stalls (and attacking through huge defenders), it is an amazing recovery after board wipes and generally just a decent spell. With the amount of tokens we generate it’s not uncommon to Torrent for 4 or 5, sometimes more. Playing it for 1 however doesn’t feel powerful at all, and that’s the main reason it’s not a 4-of. If we used Kerendon Merchant, the fourth one would always be in the Market. As is, the deck plays only 3. That usually is enough though. Forcing your opponent to use a Harsh Rule as a 1-for-1 feels good.
-Deathstrike: for when you absolutely have to kill something, this no-question-asked fast spell is your play. For 4 power it is expensive, but killing anything in Fast Spell window makes it worth it. Especially as an answer to any sort of pump or aegis giving spell.

Powerbase:
With lots of depleted power you won’t be making your T1 drops all the time, but being able to play Flamestoker or Impending Doom on time can be crucial, so it’s important to be able to make those late plays. I’m currently experimenting with Amethyst Monument as a way to mitigate flood and 4-toughness source of lifegain versus agressive Fire decks. Se far it’s been working out good.

Market:
-Bore: As boring of a choice as this is (heh, sorry), it just is powerful play versus so many decks. It can destroy any number of relics and weapons your opponent chooses to play. It will pierce Aegis and open a creature wearing weapon to removal. It’s definitely decent, but it’s the least-fetched card in the Market. Still, a silver bullet when you need it.
-Combust: I’ve explained Combust in the main deck description. Worst case scenario our of the Market it makes the Merchant a 4 power removal spell.
-Jawbone Greatsword: Amazing thing to fetch for. It gets rid of pesky x/5 fliers and in our deck it isn’t hard to make it draw Brand, Without Fear. Swinging for 16 out of nowhere is definitely a nice thing to be able to do.
-Flamestoker: My most fetched card. It’s just so good to see Infernuses (Infernii?) attack the opponent every turn. If unanswered leads to very short games.
-Gearcruncher: With the way we play, this Grenadin Boss can give some insane value. While it is uncommon that you’ll be able to fetch for it, play it and use it on the same turn, it still clutters the board and threatens repeated removal on opponent creatures. Great against midrange and also decent at refilling board post wipe. I don’t fetch for it often, but when I do it usually does some heavy lifting.

Cards not used
As much as it’s good to know what caused me to put these particluar cards in the deck, it is crucial to discuss the cards I have not put in and the reasons behind my choices.
-Oni Ronin: Arguably Fire’s second most powerful one-drop. It’s not as good here as in the other decks as we don’t have more ways to buff them. No other warcry creatures and no easily drawable weapons means that most of the time this will be a 2/1 that will trade for a single grenadin token or even won’t be able to attack. As good as this card is, this deck just can’t support it.
-Pyroknight: This is actually a decent for the deck, having possibility to do some damage early on, grow later, and Overwhelm helping it wear Stone Cudgel profitably. The reason Scrap Hound was chosen over it is a profitable Sandstorm Titan/card] matchup and better Combustion Cell and Gearcruncher interactions.
-Ticking Grenadin, Disassembler, Brimstone Altar: I tested a build focusing on these, but with all the face Aegis people run these days I’ve taken them out. Cutting the Altar was probably the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make with this deck, as it was so good tu just sacrifice and then refill with spiders, but again - till Aegis goes away, as much as I may love it, the card is just not great.
-Bandit Queen, Vicious Highwayman, Rally: While other Stonescar decks use these to push the damage through, our creatures rarely get to size necessary to beat through huge creatures. We don’t have the Warcry triggers or Rapid Shots necessary to force the issue. Out of these the best one I've tried for this deck was a Rally in the Market, but it has been phased out for cards that are relevant in more matchups.
-Factory Quota: A really powerful Market tech versus lifegain decks, but as much as I want to use it, it never brought victories. By the time this becomes relevant the control decks are dropping their creatures, and lifegain is not as big problem for this deck as for other Stonescar decks due to its inevitability in the form of Spiders. If opponent’s creatures can’t attack past my board, it doesn’t matter how big they are. And I can just chip away for couple points every turn.
-4th Statuary Maiden, Obliterate, 4th Combustion Cell: I wish I could. As stated above, Market is limited. I find myself withing for these cards from time to time, but with the meta I’m facing, The cards in the Market have been most useful so far.
-Kerendon Merchant: It would allow me to play stuff like 4th Torrent of Spiders, Dark Return, 4th Madness, another Deathstrike or In Cold Blood, Mazag, the Waking Terror, Shadowlands Tyrant, Stray into Shadow, Whispers in the Void, Azindel's Gift, or even Venomspine Hydra. The problem is that the 2/1 Deadly is just so much worse on the board. Our creatures are relatively weak and we depend on the Merchants quite a lot to stem the bleeding versus tokens and provide attacking power versus control. 2/1 Deadly would sacrifice that for a better matchup versus decks soft to deadly ground units, which we already got covered.

Cards incoming
One of the things I find myself struggling against the most is Aegis. With new Vara announced, she’s an instant pickup for the deck. a 3/4 Lifesteal is a great defensive creature against any agressive deck, but she’s also great on offense versus control and will open up Icarias of the world for us to take down with just one spell. Having her will allow Obliterate and the rest of burn-to-the face core to be possibly played again. While currently we’re playing Amethyst Monuments, she might be good enough for the deck to pick up Cabal Standard Adding more must-kill-potentially-deadly units makes me want to try that out !