My version of the masterpiece that is
Green Is Good (Updated)
The deck checks all the boxes for gauntlet:
-Its proactive full of units and gets on the board on turn 2 almost all the time making it great at stabilizing the game and starting to execute its own win-condition, which has beyond critical mass of ways at doing. Being full of cheap units also helps against the worst bosses, the charge and the double damage ones.
-It needs 3 max power to fully get online and can function on 2 for a while, also never gets color-screwed.
-Has answers for the long and and grindy games with 8 of the slots via
Justice Sketch and Svetya, although almost never reaching that far
-Sufficient access flyers, protecting you against apposing flyers and breaking board stalls when the ground gets crowded
-Sufficient access to life gain, saving you against the unfair explosive starts, specially the BS bosses
Explanation for some changes I made:
-Lystia: The deck rarely benefits the much from having the 4th power, it also usually has other dudes on the board, so her potential is not utilized well here
-Varet: I prefer the other 2 drops. This deck has a focus on snowballing games via warcy and doesn't have that many combat tricks to make Varet transform fast enough, he usually gets outclassed before getting to transform and even finest hour cant get him to transform with a single swing. He also loses the warcry buffs when transforming, essentially wasting them.
-Kira: Not enough combat tricks
-
Fearless Crescendo: Costing 2 sucks and half the deck already has flying, not restricted to 3 cost anymore
+
Crownwatch Paladin+
Ursa Squadron+
Tarra, Ever Loyal+
Scalesworn Patrol: The main way to beat down the AI with this deck is snowballing and outclassing their units using these guys.
Tarra, Ever Loyal deserves a special mention because of how consistently she gets online and makes multiple must-answer threats for the AI,trampling the AI beneath insane stat generation and winning you the game. All those two drops allow us to use her fantastically, and she snowballs the game incredibly fast. It's almost Always correct to attack with the guy you gave the warcry 2 right away, even if it your unit gets eaten for free.
+Reinvigorate: Surprise Blocking and breaking stun, which is surprisingly frequent in gauntlet also shits on permafrost.
Finest Hour
x4
1
Ghostblade Outcast
x4
1
Justice Etchings
x4
2
Crownwatch Paladin
x4
2
Mistral Messenger
x4
2
Reinvigorate
x2
2
Smite
x2
2
Steyer's Eyes
x4
2
Ursa Squadron
x3
2
West, On the Trail
x4
3
Scalesworn Patrol
x3
3
Tarra, Ever Loyal
x4
3
Unseen Commando
x4
3
Valkyrie Enforcer
x4
Justice Sigil
x15
Crownwatch Standard
x2
Emblem of Kodosh
x4
Justice Sketch
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
I think that you are underestimating how good West is in this deck. I don’t think West needs a big weapon to be good at all, and I think that it is much more flexible compared to Smite and Vanquish, which often lack good targets. West is probably even better in your list than mine since it is great at carrying buffs from Warcry, Tarra, and Scalesworn Patrol. I’m sort of eh on Reinvigorate as well, I know the actual stat buff from it will basically always be less than Take a Stand and if you’re playing Warcried units then the opponent might not be attacking a lot anyway. Having West would also help against stuns. I think West is just better than Smite/Vanquish here.
Lystia ended up pretty mediocre in testing, never really bad, but never really great. I would also cut her.
I will say that I never really had issues converting early Kira’s or Varret’s into big threats. That being said, I agree that Varret doesn’t belong in your list as he carries permanent buffs poorly. One of the reasons that Kira/Varret/West were included in the deck was because all of the 2/2 Warcry units I tried lined up really poorly against Sudden Death, Mindless Aggression, and Burn Scars. The Warcry was also irrelevant if you are immediately forced to play defensively. I could see these matchups potentially suffering for cutting so many of the 3-health 2-drops. This may not be as large of a concern now that the pool of final bosses has been expanded.
I think that Crescendo is still quite serviceable at 2, though I don’t blame you for not liking it anymore. It was a pretty big nerf. Having Etchings as your only market access might be problematic in the long run though considering how strong Pristine Light and Manacles are. If you don’t care for Crescendo then you may not care for Winchest Merchant much either. As far as having the market not be restricted to 3-cost cards, I don’t think that it is some huge boon to the deck as Pristine Light and Manacles are the only two genuine must-haves. With only four ways of accessing the market, I think that you will rarely ever grab Edict before Manacles or Pristine Light. I might look at stuff like Equalize, Tower, Monarch Cloak, Lay Siege, and Hojan, Beloved son. When I played your list I basically never wanted anything besides Light and Manacles though.
Swapping Emblem for Rune is fine when you’ve cut Varret/Kira, but I think that Crownwatch Standard is actively detrimental to this deck’s tempo. Across the 21 games I played, there was only one instance where I wouldn’t have preferred a sigil. I wasn't counting closely, but the number of games where I would have preferred an undepleted power might have reached double digits.
Im keeping 2 standards in as I Really like the life gain it provides, but im cutting two of them to hopefully avoid the critical moments when depleted power ruins the deck.