Praxis Pledge with East Annex Smuggler

Introduction

The construction of this deck is an exercise in trying to improve the Praxis Pledge deck by including some new cards from Dark Frontier. The inclusions open up some new angles of attack the deck didn't have. However, this require the removal of some important cards.

This list is different enough from the existing decks pre Dark Frontier that it's worth talking about it in a longer discussion format (see Praxis Phase Pledge for a list closer to the existing lists but with the addition of four copies of Phase Out.)

Below are assertions that are made that can be used as talking points about the changes. I don't know how true they are but they open the discussion nonetheless:

- Praxis Insignia, in addition to all the other dual faction power, provides a better power base (see discussion below) and supports a better strategy overall.
- East Annex Smuggler is the best merchant for the deck.
- Overall, the new additions (described below) provide a better strategy than the additional ramp provided by Auralian Merchant, combat/reach provided by Shugo Tactic, and wholly time or praxis market cards.


Card choices and justification

East Annex Smuggler: This is replacing Auralian Merchant. I believe the body on Ixtun Merchant is more relevant than Auralian Merchant in an aggressive deck but the fire market left much to be desired. Most players sided with Auralian Merchant. One of the biggest cards the fire market missed out on was Xenan Obelisk and to a lesser extent Sandstorm Scarf. When you remove Auralian Merchant from your deck you need to add some additional power sources. I realize the removal of Shugo Standard is a huge sticking point for players but I hope to justify its removal in my later discussion of card choices.

The fact that East Annex Smuggler can retrieve back marketed away fire cards is very powerful and should not be overlooked. The charge body adds four additional charge units and gives you more pressure after sweepers and against sites. It is a great top deck later in the game if you have a Xenan Obelisk in play.

Praxis Insignia: After taking a small sample of prior Praxis Pledge decks it seems like the top performing lists had settled on between 18 to 19 time influence and 18 to 19 fire influence (excluding pledge units or market banner and including Shugo Standard). If you had past experience with the deck you may recall that acquiring influence for Heart of the Vault was often difficult to achieve (even if you had 6 power).

theovermaster's Deck (Top 4)
AleshaKills Deck (Top 8)

This list has 21 time influence and 22 fire influence in the main deck with 16 dual faction power. My hope is that this smooths out the ability to play units up to Heart of the Vault. Market Praxis Banner is powerful but I always felt that it was simply a necessity to have in Praxis Pledge (pre Dark Frontier) due to the influence requirements rather than something you wanted to have in your market.

With the increased number of reliable power sources in the main deck you are more likely going to market away power to get a card for a matchup instead of the other way around (market away a card for a power). The increase in the number of consistent power helps you play your units if they are killing off your Initiate of the Sands, Auralian Merchant, or Glasshopper to strand your more expensive threats.

Extended discussion about the powerbase: The addition of Praxis Insignia may seem like a no-brainer but the argument for its inclusion leads to some issues about what power or cards to replace:

- You could remove Time or Fire Sigils from the deck to add more influence but this makes Seat of Impulse much worse (only 7 Sigils in the deck).
- You could instead remove Crest of Impulse (or Praxis Banner), but this would only give you more consistent undepleted power and wouldn't increase the overall number of influence sources.
- You could remove Seat of Impulse. Removing Seat of Impulse opens up the removal of Sigils from the deck entirely. With that you could then run four Granite Waystone and four Amber Waystone for additional value.

Note: Including between one to three copies of each dual-faction power to minimize the disadvantage of including them is certainly worth looking at, but I felt the discussion in the paragraph was worth including to provide the main reasons for their removal or inclusions into the powerbase (no matter how few or how many copies).

In all the situations above the constraints that are made on the deck's powerbase don't lend itself to increasing the number of influence sources in a significant way while also maintaining the number of power and Shugo Standard. If you want additional influence sources you really need to either remove Shugo Standard or increase the number of power in the deck overall.

Flame Blast: Flame Blast was a pretty uncommon choice in Praxis Pledge and was often included as a miser's copy in some lists. ("Sometimes a singleton copy is called a "Miser's" copy because if you get lucky (aka "mise" short for "might as well draw the only copy I have") it really helps the deck, but you don't want to clog the deck with multiples (reddit).") Rightly so, triple fire influence is not that easy to achieve reliably using the existing power base.

I believe the added consistency with the number of fire influence (see the Praxis Insignia section above) warrants its inclusion. Flame Blast shores up some of the weaknesses with some problem units like Cirso, the Great Glutton and Vara, Vengeance-Seeker (although Cirso, the Great Glutton has vanished from the metagame as Praxis Pledge is seeing much less play). It also provides more way to finish off an opponent and a way to interact with sites outside of combat.

Market choices

Sandstorm Scarf: Eclipse Dragon is very popular and to a lesser extent Sediti, the Killing Steel and Haunting Scream. Lethrai Soothsayer and Vishni, Lethrai Highblood are beginning to see more play as well. I believe these cards in addition to the usual culprits from Hooru and Winchest warrants its inclusion.

Phase Out: An efficient spell that can temporarily removes problematic units like Vara, Vengeance-Seeker and Cirso, the Great Glutton. Rather than silencing their units with Purify or Talir's Intervention you can simply clear the blocker out entirely which is a powerful effect the deck did not have prior.

Xenan Obelisk: Way too important to not include. Arguably the main reason why Praxis Pledge wasn't running a fire market. Important in the time mirrors and making your small units into threats against control.

Cloud of Ash: If you get into a large board stall and play this spell you will likely win on the spot. An interesting inclusion the deck didn't have before with a time market.

Obliterate: Not sure about this card but more answers to large lifesteal units and additional face damage seems like a good idea.

Conclusion

My hope was to explore Praxis Pledge and look at significant changes that can now be made to the deck since I believe it is still a great competitive option and could be made even better to keep up in power level with the current decks in the metagame. I'd imagine its removal from the metagame is more so because people are trying new cards and strategies instead of the deck being a poor option.

One card I want to go deep on is Phase Out and maxing out on copies (Four Auralian Merchant and four Phase Out) is an interesting direction the deck could head:

Praxis Phase Pledge

Pristine Light is probably the most worrisome new card for this style of deck (especially with Xenan Obelisk boosting our unit's strength) so I'll be curious to see how big of a problem this card is for the deck.

Dissociate is also in the discussion as an existing market card to still include. There are some interesting mono faction fire cards to try out in the smuggler market like: Bore, Urn of Choking Embers, Ankle Cutter, Casualties of the Cause, Factory Quota, Slag, Rally, Jawbone Greatsword, Siege Breaker, Yushkov, the Usurper, Combustion Brawler, Eclipse Dragon, or Flamestoker.