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Even Xenan Tokens

Throne Deck By
psly4mne
twodiplodocuses+0448

+9

Cost Curve

Type

Faction

Information

There are several approaches to even xenan available. This is, in my experience, the best. Gum up the board with cheap replaceable units, then grab a game-ending engine from the market. If the board stalls, Burden or The Queen of Glass will guarantee a win.

Talir's Favored, Temple Scribe, and Evenhanded Golem form the core token package along with Devour. Cheap units that replace themselves allow you to get on the board early without spending cards, and Devour lets us cash in on the small bodies for more cards once they're outclassed.

Wasteland Broker lets us shuffle an appropriate value engine for the game state. Try to play Broker before you need the cards you shuffle, to make time to draw into them. I normally find Broker too unreliable for gauntlet, but we have enough cheap draw here to get to the cards quickly. If I drew a lot of tokens, I like to go for Obelisk. If I'm facing flyers, Gnash can blow them out. If I have a Grafter, I like to shuffle Gnash and use Grafter for Grodov's Burden. The Speaking Circle is a good target if the board is stalled or I'm slightly behind, and I don't have a Grafter. Vara's Choice is usually not a good Broker target.

Speed Grafter gives us direct market access in even decks. Lack of access to Grodov's Burden was the main reason I didn't like even xenan as much before Empire of Glass, and it's the most important Grafter target. Vara's Choice is there if you need to get a big unit off the board immediately. Otherwise the considerations are about the same as for Broker.

The Speaking Circle has performed better than I thought it would. You can rely on it to deal with one or two small units through its agenda, and it often does better than that. There is just a lot of removal in the pool of available spells. Do be aware that when The Queen of Glass is in play, you can't sacrifice other units to board space, so be careful with what you play, and don't activate Grodov's Burden on a full board.

Exploit is a card you want to be careful with. Pay attention to the AI's decklist, and try to play Exploit the turn before the AI makes a key play, to maximize your chances of hitting it. After playing Exploit, remember what the AI had in hand and play around it.

Cards I'm not running:

Send an Agent, and Xenan Initiation: In this deck, I've found it sufficient to answer units with units, and we need a high concentration of units to make the token package work. I could see an alternative build that cuts Obelisk and trims the tokens for more interaction

Vara, Vengeance-Seeker: Too often, she just edicts a 1/1 and then can't challenge a bigger unit. I want to play 4 drops that can block the AI's 5 and 6 drops.

Petition: There's an argument to be made for this, but here we're rather use Talir's Favored and Spiritweaver to hit our power drops while keeping our unit count up.

Details

Shiftstone Cost
Does not include campaign cost
51,800

Premium Cost
259,200

Influence Requirements
3 2

Power Sources
25 16 16

Power Calculator
Shiftstoned Icon View Deck on Shiftstoned

Deck Rarities
18 21 21 15

Card Types
43 2 9 1 25

Contains Cards From Campaigns
Trials of Grodov [Set1006]
Awakening [Set1095]

Archetype
Midrange

Updated
December 31, 2020

Added
December 18, 2020

Views
2,535

Eternal Version
Empire of Glass

BBCode For Comments

Deck URL

Revisions (Since last major patch) December 29, 2020


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Comments

metaBrook Eternal Version: 20.12.23
Loving this list. Thanks for sharing it!
Tehl Eternal Version: 20.12.17
I agree with all tour critiques of this list with one exception. I still like moving gnash and Obelisk to the market and running them with wasteland brokers. They are so bad in your hand while you're developing the board and so good in multiples with the broker in the late game. I think you might be right about the Vara only taking out a 1/1, but those aegis decks are brutal sometimes, which i suppose doesn't matter as much if your strategy is always race. I think we've tried each others lists enough that we probably just disagree just wanted to post what I do differently and why I disagree, you might be right fwiw.
psly4mne Eternal Version: 20.12.17
I posted this before I tried your Broker list. I do think that Broker list is better for sure.

I still don't love Vara for the stated reasons, but she's been okay, might be the best for her slot anyway.
The anti-aegis effect is rarely helpful, with only our market options affected by aegis. It is helpful on occasion for letting Gnash hit aegised flyers, and shutting down Shelterwing Riders. The slot should be a 4-drop, I just want there to be a better one.
SpinyNorman Eternal Version: 20.12.17
14-0 so far, including beating the double damage boss. Thanks for the list!
Tossthegoats Eternal Version: 20.12.17
This looks like a fairly sound Xenan deck, but I have to point out that despite you calling this Xenan Tokens there's only 4 cards in the deck that make tokens: the Twinned Spitelings. I clicked expecting tons of wisps and locusts and feel a little misled.
psly4mne Eternal Version: 20.12.17
The other tokens are Favored, Scribe, and Golem. They're not generated units, but they're units that don't cost a card. I could have mentioned that in the writeup.
Tossthegoats Eternal Version: 20.12.17
Correction, Gnash makes tokens too. But he's fairly lategame.
Watermelon Eternal Version: 20.12.17
Very nice list and great explanation, thanks for your great work<3