Keelo's Time-Pod

Short explanation here: this is a Keelo, Bold Innovator deck built around reusing Gentle Grazer to grind and gain advantage while tutoring whatever unit you need for the situation. Deck is sooo much fun, but convoluted, as explained in the long version.

A lot of explanation is needed, mostly because the card selection is quite specific. I believe the best way to build this kind of deck is to minimize the number of reactive units while focusing on a strong core. Here is the breakdown of your units:

Powerbase: 4 Crack the Earth, 4 Unfamiliar Interloper, and 4 Amber Acolyte.

This is how the deck gets to all the influence it needs. Most of the deck is Time and Shadow, and once you get to Time the rest follows. The lack of Seek Power is a concession to the Grazer, but the heavy focus on Time also makes it easier to set the powerbase up. All of the JJ and PP units are usually searched from Keelo anyways, so while its not the prettiest way to get your influence set up, its nowhere near as bad as it looks.

Engine: 4 Keelo, Bold Innovator, 4 Gentle Grazer.

This is the setup the deck wants to reach, as once this gets going you start to take control of the game. It is helpful to view Keelo as a 4-drop, both for influence purposes and play sequences. Whenever you can afford to I recommend using Keelo to fetch another one, because you always want to have access to this card.

Toolbox: 2 Blightmoth, 4 Pesky Seedling, 2 Rectifier, 2 Qirin Ascendant, 1 Purgedriver, 1 Forbidden-Rider Outcast, 1 Albon, Fallen.

These give the deck a lot of utility and flexibility off Keelo, while also being fine to draw normally. Blightmoth is generally an excellent card that will slow down boards or wipe them clean, Rectifier and Purgedriver shut off opposing effects, Qirin Ascendant is for attachments, and Forbidden-Rider Outcast is there to stabilize against multiple fliers.

I was happy with 4 Pesky Seedling simply as a unit that comes down early, gives some info and slows down the board. Being a strong corrupt unit that can be turned into Grazer is also really strong, and thats where it gets a lot of value here. Albon, Fallen serves the dual purpose of being a 5-drop to chain Feartracker, but is also useful to force out board stalls and put you in positions to close the game. Like other units here, he helps handle fliers, which this deck is really weak to as a ground-based unit deck.

Win Conditions: 3 Feartracker, 3 Eremot's Machinations, 4 Nahid's Distillation.

Feartracker is very good at giving you reach while helping you stabilize. It lets this deck beatdown pretty nicely and apply pressure even when it doesn't have a lot going on. In those situations, Eremot's Machinations is there to pull you ahead by recurring fallen Keelos and whatever utility you want on 3. The only 1-drop you can bring back is the Xenan Token, but recurring Keelo + fodder is so strong that the card is still worth it here.

While not really a win conditon, Nahid's Distillation can help this deck find cards and power, and curves out really nicely with Amber Acolyte. Plus this deck always has board presence due to corrupt, so the card is an easy inclusion in the deck.

This is likely the deck I will be testing the most in this Expedition, as the game play is fun and rewarding. There's likely more tinkering to do, but I'm excited to keep playing it :)

Some tips:

Avoid playing Keelo and passing priority if you intend to use the ability in the same turn. Take time to map out your turn, as you can get quite punished by fast interaction.

The best hands will have fixing and Keelo/Grazer. You don't necessarily want to mull for these, but you should almost always keep a hand that has proper influence and/or fixing. Between 4 Keelo, 4 Grazer and 4 Distillation, you can use the rest of your hand to grind until you find one of these 12 cards.

Be careful when managing your corrupted units, as this is one of the easiest ways you can spew resources. I often only like sacing a Rectifier if I can also sac the shade or use the ability in the same turn, as otherwise he'll just die EoT. The others give you a bit more room for mistakes, but this is the deck to maximizing the deck.

Update 1/04/20

Qirin moved to 1 because Rectifier is easily to play on 3 if you draw into it, and has the benefit of being a cultist for Ark of Sol. The JJ units on 4 were pretty subpar, and Archive Curator is easier to cast when drawn and a way to get to the 5s. Aeva, Eilyn's Elite is a strong threat to Keelo into that gets you cards for the market and gives you 1-drops for Machinations.

Eremot's Machinations is the real endgame of the deck, and I moved it to 4 so that it could be found more reliably. You often cast at least 2, and sometimes you just want to recur your utility effects from the grave. Grodov's Burden is gone in the market, as exalted messes with Keelo chains. That being said, I've been pretty unhappy with the 5-drop market in general, though I think its still the best fit for this deck. This is one point I would like to work on, however.

Update 2:

Trying mgallop's take on the deck with an 8 to turn Albon into and Machination's in the market. Vanquish might be easier to cast than Card into Shadow, but either way I've been convinced the deck needs the help against large bodies. One consideration is that the deck might need to cast multiple Machination's per game, which is one of the next questions that will need to me answered.

So far all the changes feel very good, and with proper resource management the pain of only 1 Machination's per game should be minimal. The consensus so far is that the deck is easy to pilot, but spewing resources will make you miss the multiple Machination's. As the lines can get pretty intricate, its important to be careful with your plans and consider planning your corrupted units carefully.

Update 03/04/20

Convinced by daysundoing to try Grodov's Burden market, Marsh Dragon Thrashing Dune Wurm in the main, which so far have all been really solid. I used to dislike Burden because it messes up your Keelo chains, but as long as you don't let it catch you off guard its never a real problem. Exalting killer is really strong, particularly with Dune Wurm in the equation.

Aurapierce is a card I've been trying to mixed results. Its certainly fine, and its never been atrocious, but it also doesnt feel entirely needed. It does help the deck close pretty quickly which is nice, and can be turned into Eilyn, so it has some usefulness, but the jury is out on it.

Update 13/04/20

Cut Aurapiercer, as it was fine but never great. The deck plays so much fixing already that I decided to just toss Vox, Nurturing Sadist, as it seemed good enough in the FTS Corrupted decks to try here, and I felt the deck needed another option to fetch with Keelo on 2.

Update 18/04/20

Cut Vox for Feln Banner. The deck suffers most from not hitting power 3 and 4, and it feels like this is the cleanest way to address the problem. Vox was fine but not great, and hitting it randomly with Grazer was a problem at times. Overall, this feels a lot cleaner, and something that the deck actually needs.