Praxis Sentinels

Been playing around with the Praxis Sentinels deck archetype, and been quite surprised at how well it was doing even in the previous Makto/Vara/Removal Pile meta. Certain matchups can be a fair bit RNG based, (do you get your Gear Masters down? Do they get removed instantly? If No, Value!), but many matchups are very solid due to how incredibly powerful many of your cards are compared to their costs; which gets even more silly once you add in a special card that functions fantastically in the deck: Miner's Musket.

Enough Blather, onto the card explanations. I will only be explaining some of the more unusual cards in the deck, as some (Sandstone Titan, Heart of the Vault) are no brainers and pretty standard praxis.

Talir's Intervention: This card pulls triple duty, and can have an amazing impact in almost every matchup you fight; this is a card you will never be sad to see.

Against Aggro: the healing can be just the thing you need to stablize, but you the time, or pull out a surprise win as you heal yourself out of range of their burn or surprise buffs, and the instant speed, low cost silence can be a nasty trick against certain cards the deck could potentially have problems with (Rakano Outlaw, Champion of Glory, Soulfire Drake).

Against Control: The Silence against any Makto, FelnScream, Tavrod, or Reanimator (Less so now obviously) decks can be a game winner, especially given that with Purify, you're given 8 fantastic options for silence that bring some real quality to the deck. Whereas against Removal pile decks, getting that bounce on a high value sentinel like Heart of the Vault, Sandstorm Titan, or hell, sometimes even the Parapet Sentry, can make a giant difference on your ability to win the match-up. Being able to save something from wrath is also a very powerful effect. None of these effects are individually good enough to justify playing, but added together, it ends up a fantastically powerful, and versatile card.

Miner's Musket: This has been the card I've gotten the most comments about from opponents as it's largely been written off as a bad card. However it gives you fantastic legs against aggro taking out an early Skycrag champion, or Rakano Outlaw, and having it hit a Sandstorm titan, Parapet Sentry, or Heart of the Vault can singlehandedly end up giving you a victory (4 mana Hearts of the Vault are an amazing thing). This card, In combination with the Torch/Purify pairing, gives you the control you need to often survive the first 2-3 turns, which is the weakest part of this decks gameplay.

Powerstone: Turn 3 Sandstorm Titan, Monolith Guardian, or Ancient Lore. Enough Said.

Gear Master: This card from dicussions has earned the tag of: "Seems nice, but way too clunky". And, for sure, in some match-ups it definitely can be a bit clunky. But in a long, drawn out control match-up's, being able to refill your hand relatively quickly, while building another threat, can often allow you to out value your opponent. And worst case scenario, if it gets one usage, it cantrips while forcing the opponent to blow removal. Often best in a later game scenario when both opponent's may be running low on cards / removal. A game state this deck hits moderately often.

Mysterium Orb: This card drew some hype on launch from some people, but was quickly discovered that it didn't really DO enough for its cost. It's nice and all, but with how prevalent removal is, the explorer's of note end up useless. However, against some match ups it is, once again, a super powerful card. Against Primal the endurance portion of things can render some parts of their deck as completely useless, and against aggro the Overwhelm portion prevents them from being able to chump you while digging for burn. The mana ramp portion... is frankly useless; just view this as a superior Infinite Hourglass.

Seasoned Spelunker: With his buffs, the Spelunker has found a very solid place on this decklist as either a giant beatstick at 5/5, or a Monolith Guardian/Parapet Sentry enabler with his Ultimate; in combination with his being an explorer for Mysterium Orb, and he just has a fantastic, and powerful place on this list he didn't have previously.

Ancient Lore: The last of the real question cards but it's not a complicated one. With the Power Wtones, cost reductions, and overall beef of the deck, this card often ends up... completely playable! It makes your beefy stuff even beefier, and you end up casting it on 3 or for 2 surprisingly often.

I am 100% open to commentary and criticisms. I've played maybe 20-30 games with the deck, climbed from the depths of bronze to midway through diamond with this (then lost a shit tonne of ranks playing jank brews) in the last meta. With the buffs to Parapet Sentry (which helps it's trade potential dramatically in the meta), and the nerfs to some of its worst match-ups, I really feel this could have a decent place as a Tier 2 deck. It has weaknesses, but it is absolutely far from weak given through my climb I maintained a 74% win rate.