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Xenan Master Gauntlet Grinder

Gauntlet Deck By
tehaaron

+8

Cost Curve

Type

Faction

Information

This deck has been far more consistent for me than any of the other decks listed on EWC for gauntlet since Homecoming. I have only lost in gauntlet 3 times when the AI just goes ham somewhere in an early non-boss game - that's about 9, 7-0 runs in the last week or 2. I think there is still room for improvement and interested in any suggestions.

We are looking for an opening hand with at least 2T and Teacher of Humility or 2-3 power and Amaran Stinger. It turns out that the AI does not care much about Amaran Stinger infiltrating and the scorpions it produces turn out to be incredibly valuable either for going wide or fending off large enemy units. In fact, scorpions from traps are probably what carries this deck to victory most of the time whether it be from wide dmg or holding of the AI and protecting sites. Therefore, prioritize getting him to hit!

After turn 3 we are looking to get Xenan Temple out on 5 which has many great effects - draw, give killer to a deadly unit, and my favorite is the on-going effect of stealing the units we kill and putting them in our void. What I didn't know before playing this deck was that the effect works for revenge units - we steal them and then they revenge back into our deck!

The cards that have questionable value to me are:
Azindel, Revealed - sometimes he helps close out games but there is an obvious conflict when he draws the scorpion traps from the enemy deck and they get played against you but this hasn't caused me a loss.

Adding some timing info...I have never kept track of gauntlet clear times and I do not know what is good but here is my latest run (7-0):
Total time: 35mins
Decks:
Kosul Heroes
Tales of Elysia
Airborne Assult
Students of Time
Combrei Alliance
The Strangers
Sudden Death

FWIW - I haven't lost a gauntlet since posting this..5 more 7-0's.

Details

Shiftstone Cost
Does not include campaign cost
56,050
Premium Cost
300,000
Influence Requirements
2 2
Power Sources
17 20 12 2
Power Calculator
Shiftstoned Icon View Deck on Shiftstoned
Deck Rarities
9 20 14 2 22
Card Types
23 1 24 5 27
Contains Cards From Campaigns
Dead Reckoning [Set1003]
Into Shadow [Set1004]
Homecoming [Set1005]
Archetype
Midrange
Updated
May 9, 2019
Added
April 28, 2019
Views
5,703
Eternal Version
Dark Frontier
BBCode For Comments
Deck URL
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Comments

Jkjkgrl Eternal Version: 1.46.7
Teach me how to play this deck please, I'm always locked into a drawn out stale mate.
LifeByJulian Edited Eternal Version: 1.45.7
What a great decklist, I took this from bronze to Master with only a single loss to a boss that just had an insane opener.
For the main deck I removed all copies of the sites as I don't own them except one Temple (which resides in the market for easy access) And swapped in four Moonstone Vanguard, one Worldbearer Behemoth, and two Devour.
In the market I took out Azindel, Revealed and Secret Passage in favor of Vara, Fate-Touched and Dizo, Cabal Chairman (only because I have yet to play through all of Into Shadow and somehow have yet to open a single Secret Passage),
tehaaron Eternal Version: 1.45.7
So glad you were able to modify it and still have such success! Way to go!
Patches Eternal Version: 1.45.7
Gave this a run and got an immediate 7-0, though I did make a couple of small changes.

Swapped out ICB to the market in place of Setback and placed Deleph in place of ICB in the main. Deleph really swings games heavily in your favor and seems to break the AI when given certain cards like combustion cell or the like.
tehaaron Eternal Version: 1.45.7
I like your suggestion about Deleph but I have found ICB to be really useful in main deck. Because I was getting poor return for Devour I decided to swap them out in favor of Deleph and I am enjoying the switch a lot. Thanks!
Jgliss31 Eternal Version: 1.45.7
Saw this on discord. I dunno how effective arcanum is, I think a second xenan temple would be better. I’ve run something similar against gauntlet but have used the smuggler instead of the merchant and deleph in the main as well. Deleph gives you great card advantage and if teacher hits, the cards given to the opponent via Deleph aren’t usually castable quickly because of the weights. I also think ICB is a better market card than it is in the main. Xenan in general is great in gauntlet
tehaaron Eternal Version: 1.45.7
I agree about more temple but I didn't have it at the time. I have since created 2 more and added them in favor of Praxis and one Dizo. I prefer kerendon merchant simply for the deadly ability which helps hold off the AI better in my experience. I also swapped out Devour for 2 Deleph and really like the change. Thanks!