Bay of Pigs

This is my deck from the Brewer's Ball. I thought I'd post it with a gameplay primer for new players or anyone else who wants to try it.

This deck is a fun, consistent, and fairly efficient gauntlet grinder. It takes full advantage of Cirso, False Prince, Equivocate, and Thundering Kerasaur, all cards that the AI has a particularly difficult time dealing with correctly. They will only ever see False Prince as a 5/5, so they'll never try to Torch or snowball it, and I've even seen them Polymorph it, which is funny. They will attack into and block Cirso poorly, sometimes not accounting for the pig transformation and never accounting for a potential bounce spell netting you a three-for-one. Equivocate is odd and inconsistent but I've noticed that the AI will often not play whatever creature you equivocated until it exhausted all its native cards first, even if it's a better card in a vacuum. Kerasaur will draw you many many cards, as the AI will not withhold Seek Power or Favors while you have him out.

Do NOT take this deck onto ladder as is. It's slow and predictable, making it particularly horrible in this control- and combo-heavy meta we have right now. In an aggro meta it works a little better, with some tweaking. Fill up on Tocas, Waystone Harvester, add Teacher of Humility maybe, and add market Cirso's Choice to blow out aggro, Shrine to Karvet decks, and anything that wins with a face spell (Maul? Solitude?). As is, the deck preys on other big creature decks, because Cirso does not give a shit, and could work quite well in such a meta, so that's something to keep in mind I guess.

Now I'll move on to some gameplay tips. Turn 3 is when you really start playing, and so the turn 3 play is paramount:

-Hailstorm immediately if your opponent is showing 5+ killable damage or 3+ killable bodies. Aggro is our worst matchup in gauntlet and we need to wrath aggressively to stay ahead of the damage.

-Shepherd's Horn before Dawnwalker or False Prince whenever your opponent is not threatening too much damage or if it can accelerate out a 5-drop.

-If you have a path to 4 Time Influence in hand already, make sure to play Dawnwalker before False Prince so you can reanimate the Dawnwalker if it gets killed.

-Play Tocas, Waystone Harvester if you desperately need a blocker or if you have a 5-drop and an additional power already in hand, enabling you to power it out turn 4.

-Your last common turn 3 play option is Auralian Merchant, which is best played as above to accelerate a 5-drop, or to fetch Sandstorm Titan out of market against a flying-heavy deck (Airborn Assault, Army of Justice, etc.) or if you have no other beater in hand.

General play tips:

-DON'T Xenan Initiation FALSE PRINCE

-Don't be too afraid to play beaters into a removal-heavy deck knowing they'll get killed. We want to eat up their removal. Horn will keep us ahead of damage, Dawnwalker will provide recurring value, and Mokhnati, Restored and Touvon, Skybreak Giant will win us the long game.

-Equivocate on something blocking one of your Overwhelm units will allow all the damage to go through.

-Worldbearer Behemoth is the better 5-mana play against a clean board, as it will begin accelerating you and thinning your deck.

-Market Infinite Hourglass straight up wins vs. the stun deck, which is otherwise a weirdly difficult matchup if they Rebuke our Titan.

-Twilight Hunt is not used here as I've found nightfall benefits gauntlet decks more often than it benefits us.

-Priority Equivocate/Killer targets: Mystic Ascendant, Arcanum Monitor, Amilli, Cloudmarshal, Wump, Party Starter, Hero of the People, Direwood Beastcaller,
High Prophet of Sol, Scraptank, Umbren Reaper, Avisaur Patriarch, Oni Quartermaster, Beckoning Lumen, Katra, the Devoted, etc. Basically it's turn 3-4 threats and shit that generates value without having to attack on the ground. Value is your enemy. Cirso & friends can handle all the other big ground beaters.

-Save an Equivocate for any of the decks running Deepforged Plate to avoid a blowout. Cirso doesn't like big weapons.

-Know which decks have board wipes (Ancient Power, Best Served Cold, Kodosh's Armory, and The Great Armory). Never overextend against these decks. Always hold back 1-2 of your beaters in hand and only maintain enough board presence as you need to stay ahead.