i wanted to build
The Throne Room but i wanted to trigger it as easily and often as possible without needing to attack.
turns out icecrag has a lot of units that trigger throne room for free! icecrag also has really strong 2 drops that are aggressive and evasive, good for triggering throne room on curve.
free triggers:
Gareth, Veteran Lantern -- this guy goes nuts and can single handedly win the game with throne room in play. also, don't forget he exhausts units that take damage! i've won many games exhausting blockers with snowballs (or his own ability if you have the power to spare)
Jekk, Mercenary Hunter -- this guy is also nuts; he can borderline wipe their board, trigger throne room, and/or provide card draw...
Wump, Party Starter -- pumps all of our yetis and turns them into free throne room triggers
heroes:
Altin, Bird Whisperer -- one of our 2 cost heroes that consistently trigger a turn 3 throne room. also has a hidden buff:
his invulnerability to damage from flying units is not recognized by the ai! they will
always block or attack into this guy thinking they can trade and they never can :)
Midchief Salus -- another 2 cost hero that is essentially unblockable for the first few turns (3 attack quickdraw is disgustingly good). also scales really well with her amplify
Plunk Wumpkin -- our last 2 cost hero and yes, he's really effing good...
Torq, Ballistics Crafter -- don't underestimate
Rocket Sleds! they're like baby throne rooms that also scale our damage cards, often letting us burn the opponent to death with snowballs,
Torches, and
Warning Shots
Nomnom & Sashenka -- beefs up our fairly fragile units and deals stupid amounts of damage. however, this is our flex slot and they're not a necessity (i ran nomnom in the market originally which worked fine, too). i recommend
Crunch, the Hoarder or
Pokpok, Rockpacker in their place because we want to keep our yeti count high for wump.
EDIT: been experimenting with
Riva, Crimson Blur in place of nomnom and i'm really digging it. riva has crazy high board impact and feels much more proactive. however, the loss of nomnom can't be understated -- we weaken our yeti subtheme, lose board toughness, and sacrifice unit killing potential. overall, though, i think riva is probably stronger because when it comes to gauntlet being proactive is always better than being reactive.
power:
don't cut sigils! they make jekk an absolute house so we need a good amount of them to be able to discard. could also play
Mark of the Grove or
Mark of the Den over cylix, user preference.
Greater Plans sound solid but i don't have them and didn't want to craft them. we play 2
Warning Shot because this deck struggled with power at times but adding just these 2 copies have shored up the power difficulties a surprising amount (they also synergize well with the rest of the deck).
other cards:
i tried
Karrina, Hive Guardian but she would very often recklessly commit suicide into their big flyers so we cut her
i also tried
Milos, Rebel Bomber but we have too many 3 drops and he just wasn't as good as the others
there's certainly a case to be made for
Xultan Ambassador but i like sticking to themes and since he's not a hero he doesn't make the cut!!
market
EDIT:
after playing another dozen or so matches with this deck i had an epiphany: a primal market wasn't solving our problems. the things i've been dying to (primarily big endurance units like
Skysplitter and weapons like
Bloodletter) have virtually no answer in primal. so i swapped to a fire market because it has MUCH better responses to our biggest threats and feels a lot smoother.
Bore to deal with attachments
Ankle Cutter to absolutely nuke endurance and lifesteal units
Factory Quota to put a clock on spell heavy decks and ruin bolster
Zuberi, Outlands Warlord to END. THE. GAME. he is
unbelievably powerful and has great synergy with our deck (double damage is stupid good and is a great passive buff to our pingers)
Skycrag Tome to solve power but is mostly a flex slot