Alright I am back at it again guys. Made it to Masters off the back of this bad boy.
I took the traditional TJPledge decks, and was looking at how I can generate some amazing value. Thats when the skies clouded over, rain started to fall, and with righteous thunder Thor spoke with the drop of his might hammer.
Savagery has been an enigma to me since i saw it, 3PPP is insane on a 1 drop so it must be powerful. Thats when I noticed the interactions it has in this deck, to the point that I wanted other 1 drop killer effects...pun intended. Now some people might be like Sweaty, why did you not play
Twilight Hunt it does the same thing AND you draw a card. Well, it works both ways, the opponent gets to draw before you do. We do not want them to be able to dig to an answer.
So obviously we are going to be playing this at the start like a normal Pledge deck. We want a pledge and some kind of payoff card, notably
Bear Guard Bayonet,
Glasshopper, or both better yet. Bayonet ramps us, and Glassy Boi gets us our Pledge back. Now where the deck is interesting is, all of our 5 drops benefit from a 1 power killer spell.
Aniyah, Arctic Sheriff can be essentially a 4 for 1. You lock down a unit, fight another, and then your opponent has to spend at least 2 cards to kill her. Pretty freaking sweet in my opinion.
Jotun Feast-Caller is pretty obvious, you get to draw a card right away so the killer spell becomes a 2 for 1. Then finally
Moonstone Vanguard is like Feasty Boi except he gets to hang back afterwards to block the day away. With Sheriff and Moony, they can come down rather early thanks to
Glasshopper so being able to play both the unit and the kill spell on the same turn can cripple your opponent out of nowhere, which is essentially why I am going to say this. If you open a hand with
Hojan, Crownbreaker and a killer card, do not throw hojan on turn 2, wait till 3 and get the double empower activation, gain some life and kill something.
Winchest Merchant is 4/5 times going to grab
Sword of Unity as it is the most advantageous card in our market that propels the plan forward.
You want to be grinding advantage at every turn with this deck, I would probably say this deck is not for beginners as 1 wrong turn can set you way behind. Anyway, that is the Hammer Drop everyone, enjoy, bring me feedback we would love to hear it, and good luck everyone.
Team Crescendo
Bear Guard Bayonet
x4
1
Predator's Instinct
x3
1
Savagery
x3
2
Glasshopper
x4
2
Hojan, Crownbreaker
x4
2
Vanquisher's Blade
x2
3
Winchest Merchant
x4
3
Wisdom of the Elders
x4
4
Cykalis, the Burning Sand
x2
5
Aniyah, Arctic Sheriff
x4
5
Jotun Feast-Caller
x4
5
Moonstone Vanguard
x4
5
Silverwing Courier
x4
6
Korovyat Palace
x4
Justice Sigil
x3
Primal Sigil
x4
Time Sigil
x3
Combrei Banner
x3
Elysian Banner
x2
Hooru Banner
x3
Seat of Order
x2
Seat of Progress
x3
Seat of Wisdom
x2
View Deck on Shiftstoned
80% of my games.
My experience is that sometimes you'll get what you'll need. But the vast majority of the time, you'll have your early game removed by 1 or 2 removal spells, and then lose before you can use savagery/jotun, will be short influence to drop your mid costed units, or have a hand full of unit matters cards with no way to stick a unit. Also the number of merchants is quite low when you often are stuck with uncastable cards in hand, and in the 8 merchant meta, you just get out answered. The only way this deck wins seems to be pray your opponent can't do anything, or runs out of removal when you can eventually grind out with glasshopper advantage. In 15 games i was unable to cast a single jotun, period, as either i never drew them, or more often, when i did, i didn't have the PPP and died not long after the dead draw. Same with savagery.
Final Score 1(won vs hooru by a lucky topdeck cyk)-14
Maybe it works better in masters, esp if there is less aggro, less control, less removal, more greed, but it definitely cost me dropping from diamond 3 to gold 1 again. I dont see how it is possible to grind for advantage when the deck is set up to lose 2 for 1 to fast removal, baby vara, or just not playing things with due to janky influence reqs and no fixing.
It could just be my terrible luck. Ive played so many pledge decks, studied how streamers play them, and done everything i can to try to make them work, but i cant get a single one to get more then a 40% win rate period, this one just seems to be the biggest ask from a pledge deck. I know several people have taken them to masters.
I only made a few market changes: i replaced End of the Story and Bring Down with Adjudicator's Gavel and Vision of Austerity. I found them more useful againt decks i've been facing.