This deck is heavily based on one I found here over 6 months ago, but it has since been removed and needed some fixing up after nerfs etc. I figured to share it because it is by far the most consistent deck I have played in gauntlet (after 'KCBandits FJS' got nerfed to the ground) only losing something like 1 out of 6 boss battles. It's almost impossible to lose to aggro or control with the deck. It's only real threat are fast midrange flyer decks if you fail to draw any of your plethora of answers.
The gameplan is to cantrip through your deck with
Evenhanded Golem,
Temple Scribe,
Devour and
Talir's Favored, while at the same time stalling aggro decks. You almost always want to shift
Devotee of the Sands on turn 2 or 4 to jump up in even powers and get more options.
Blistersting Wasp and
Ripknife Assassin are the best 2-power cards that scale into lategame as removal or stall; the AI is infamously bad at assessing poisonous units.
Sandstorm Titan and
Vara, Vengeance-Seeker take over the midgame from aggro and go even with most midrange decks. If you have only drawn your small cantrip units then
Xenan Obelisk can turn them into a sudden threat. At this point aggro is utterly done for, midrange should be under control or losing and control has lost or is about to.
The only problem now might be strong midrange decks and that is why we have the superstar show stopper
Azindel, Revealed. When you get him down it often means the game is over. The reason is that he's instant staller with 2 poisonous units, he's a big body himself and the card draw value is obsene to follow. Azindel often survives a very long time because at that point of the game the AI has usually blown it's removal on Titans, Varas, Teachers of Humility and poisonous units.
When it comes to Gauntlet bosses the ones you expect to face in high elo Master are Company of Exiles, Double Damage and Units have Charge. Company and Charge you can beat very consistently by playing your cards right and understanding the fight, but generally most of the games you're gonna lose are to Double Damage when he just draws completely unavoidable damage like
Ticking Grenadin and
Umbren Reaper.
Some tips are to take the early game slow except if you know you're playing against non-interactive AI decks like Spells of Praxis etc. Always shift your Devotee for guaranteed ramp and play card draw before units like Ripknife and possibly even Titan or Vara. Let the opponent make the attacks so you can trade efficiently and let them use removal on your smaller units to make sure you win the game when you get Azindel. For example graveyard decks only get more powerful if you actively trade with them but they usually wont make attacks with units other than Dark Wisp so you can stalemate them until you get Azindel or two and maybe an obelisk to quickly clock the opponent down. Obviously the more you know about gauntlet the more you can cater to whatever you're playing against.
The deck has lots of
card replacement possibilities to suit your collection. Most of the core cards are cheap to craft and you get Azindel and Vara from same expansion. The first cards to definitely go if you don't have them are
Teacher of Humility. After the nerf to her health she's just not the same and usually just ends up being an average body to trade, with a rare twist of card draw. I'd probably try
Argenport Instigator for decent body or
Dark Wisp for the cantrip. Possibly also some removal like
Defile or
Vara's Choice.
Thoughts or questions much appreciated, since this is my first deck posted here.