Kerendon Control

The arrival of Cold Hunt brought with it 2 new incredibly powerful control cards in Nothing Remains and Saloon Massacre. Combine these with the existing Justice control staple of Harsh Rule and you have 12 devastating board wipes, and you can even use them against aggro thanks to the Contract mechanic on Saloon Massacre and the fact that Nothing Remains only costs 4, even if it does have the JJSS influence requirement. Nothing Remains also protects you against Void shenanigans by giving the units Voidbind.

This really allowed Unitless Argenport Control (wait, I thought this was a Kerendon deck?? Yeah, we'll get to that in a moment) to step up its game. By utilizing the powerful relic Watchwing Support and no units to speak of in the deck, you could guarantee that your buffs went to your finishers: Relic Weapons. Throw down all those board wipes and keep the battlefield clear so that you can keep swinging at the dome. That's the name of the game.

Your Relic Weapon choice may vary, but my preference is to play the long game and that means to keep my life total high. I run 4 copies of Lifedrinker for the 1-time life gain, and 4 copies of Auric Runehammer which protects itself on the first swing. I do have one of the new ultra-beefy Relic Weapons in the Market (Stormhalt Plating), but we'll get to that in a minute too. Just keep in mind that Watchwing Support will turn those meager 2/2 and 4/1 Relic Weapons into hulking 8/8 or 10/7 Relic Weapons easily enough.

So, you might be asking yourself, "Is the occasional big Relic Weapon and infinite board wipes really enough to get the W?" Not quite. You need to keep that armor up to keep getting spot removal and dome damage from your Relic Weapons. For that, we turn to the real finisher of the deck, which might not seem like it is at first: Valkyrie Station.

This beauty nets you 1 armor at the end of your turn, or if you are already topped off at 7 armor, then it makes you a 2/2 Flying Valkyrie. "Hey, wait!", you say. "That's a unit! And this is a 'unitless' deck!". Ah yes, the key to victory in a "unitless" deck often is to play units. Preferably Flyers. And ones that you get for free, incidentally.

And along the lines of incidental units, we also have a couple of other (Legendary) cards that will get us units without having to actually have units in the deck: Righteous Intent and Lord Steyer's Tower.

Righteous Intent gains us 3 armor the turn we play it and draws us a Kesava, Trueheart, which is a 5-drop that will change your life. 6 Toughness (dodges your own Saloon Massacre), Lifesteal, and synergy with armor like you'd never believe. Often, I'll play this after I have the Valkyrie Station out and I'm sitting at 4 armor. This bumps me up to 7, draws me the unit, and then since I'm at 7 armor I get the 2/2 Flyer.

Lord Steyer's Tower keeps the Flying Valkyrie gravy train rolling. Make a couple 1/1 Flyers for chump blocking. Pop some Aegis with the -1 Attack spell. Or if you've already got the Valks and you need a couple extra armor to get to 7, use the +4/+4 and +Armor equal to the number of Valks. Usually lets you swing with a 5/5, and you'll make back a 2/2 at the end of the turn. And if you can protect the site (that should basically always happen with infinite board wipes), you get a 6/6 Flying Endurance Valkyrie out of it with incidental card draw upside.

Alright, still with me? Good. Now, you probably still have 2 questions. First, "Isn't this a Kerendon deck? Where's the Time?". Second, "You have a Market and you are using a Merchant to access it. That's DEFINITELY a unit! Like, an in-your-deck unit."

Correct. All good points. First, the strength of Valkyrie Station cannot be stated enough. Beefing your armor is only part of it. Making those 2/2 Flyers completely closes out the game. So getting to that 7 armor and keeping the armor up all while attacking units and domes is the most important end game goal. There's no better card to support this strategy than the classic Stronghold's Visage. Gaining the armor at the beginning of the turn lets you swing your sword when you otherwise might not have been able to. And if you have a Kesava, Trueheart or 2 out when you start your turn... whoo boy, you are winning like Charlie Sheen in a rigged casino.

To the second point, yes, there are 4 copies of Hidden Road Smuggler. Aside from being an ok target to accidentally get buffed by Watchwing Support (because of the Lifesteal), the reason he's in there is because there is a ridiculously powerful, 0-cost, UNCOMMON spell that makes our Relic Weapon go super saiyan: The Nightmare Gates. Problem is, we have to sac a unit for it. "Oh! Hey! I see what you did there!"

Yes, see, we can play the Merchant, grab The Nightmare Gates, and sac said merchant in the same turn, giving our Relic Weapon +5/+5, letting it just bathe in the blood of our enemies, and probably still have 7 armor after the turn to make a blocker. Other Market cards are mainly situational.

Cast into Shadow is no different than Slay most of the time, but quite often there will be multiple units you want to kill but don't want to kill your own Kesava, Trueheart with a board wipe. Well, if they aren't multi-faction, then this gets the job done quite well, and is also a fine 6-power play to follow up your turn 5 Harsh Rule when they play their last 2 cards to try to rush you back.

Adjudicator's Gavel and Dichro's Ruin are fairly explanatory (the only part of this guide that is).

Stormhalt Plating is a flex spot for sure. I happen to have one copy, so it's in the Market. You don't actually get to 8 power very often with this deck. It finishes opponents off before then. But if you do, then a base 6 power sword that can attack twice each turn and has a bajillion armor to boot closes out the game fast. But don't sleep on inscribing it either. Sometimes you need that extra power, and inscribing it gives you 2 Armor. Sometimes that gets you to 7 armor and starts making 2/2 Flyers. It matters more than you'd think.

As a truly Unitless Argenport Control deck, I went through a Gauntlet and then lost the second Gauntlet because the boss rule was everything had Charge (Dichro's would've saved me there). Then I added the Market and breezed through a Gauntlet. Then I switched it to the slight bit of Kerendon and it's just felt so much more powerful. Breezed through 2 Gauntlets without ever feeling like I was pressured.

So there you have it. Kerendon Control.