This deck has been very consistent for me in gauntlet and is a blast to play. You've gotta love the deadly pings!
Control the board, gain health and get Waxing Moon out whenever possible. Getting two moons that are alternating between turns is a beautiful thing. Be mindful of the turns that you have deadly. Hellfire Valkyrie, Vicious Highwayman and Black-Sky Harbinger go bonkers under the effects of the moon. Vara, Vengeance-Seeker clears aegis to keep everything vulnerable to your game plan. Nectar of Unlife can minimize damage early or give us units back late. Don't forget that our marketed Waylay can be decimated to steal our opponent's graveyard as well, if they have something you may want. Vine Grafter blessing one of your units with regen is also a lot of fun in combination with the deadly effect.
It's a fun grinder deck if you're into that kind of thing. While Waxing Moon maximizes fun and effectiveness, it can absolutely win without drawing it. I hope that you enjoy! :)
The ShiftstonedEternal Power Calculator is a deck-building tool that visualizes your odds of drawing enough Influence and Power based specifically on the cards found in your deck.
I did think about Autotread. To be fair, I never actually tested it. I was slightly afraid of him being too resource intensive and a bit all-in on a hyper aggressive strategy over something more stable for the 7 game runs in gauntlet. I was worried that in the early game he would be burning off our late game combo assets in order to ping small enemies or he'd be waiting around until at least turn five when we get moon out so that he can turn into the deadly beast that he has the potential to be. I'll probably still do some testing with him and check it out for myself :)
You gotta treat him like Jekk: only play him when you know you’ll get removals with him. Some games that might not be till after you drop moon. But the fact that you get REPEATED removal from him both on the turn you play him AND any deadly turn after that, makes him better than valk, from my testing.
Okay! I'm getting the picture now. I misunderstood part of your post earlier. I thought that you tore out Desecrate in favor of Autotread but you were speaking of the discard effect turning Desecrate draws into a better form of removal. I could see this taking the place of the Valkyrie in that case. I'm definitely going to give that a run!
Yeah, playing around with Autotread, it’s game changing. Turns your Desecrate into a 1 cost with no downside. Turns power cards into 1 cost Deathstrike. Just so good.
How in the world did I overlook Jekk in my play testing?! I couldn't agree with you more. That is an excellent addition. While Hellfire Valkyrie is good if she sticks, one of my biggest problems with this deck was that she didn't have an immediate impact. Jekk has potential to strike down two things upon being dropped. Him plus the control aspect of this deck should give you troves. Moon should give you things to discard to Jekk. I love it! Thanks for the comment! You may have just altered this list haha
Okay! Now I remember why I shied away from this card initially. I forgot about the triple fire influence (I was thinking it was double at the time of my last post). I did some tweaks to the power base and I'm doing some testing. In theory, if Jekk were included and consistent then he would certainly rock it. I'll have to play around with him some more here though :)
Shadowlands Tyrant makes an excellent replacement if you are short any of the big units. I think Petition might work better since you only have 6 sigils.
I can see Petition being a thing. I love Petition in a Cylix heavy decks. I was trying to keep my fixing as cheap as possible but there is certainly a point here :)
Open Contract
x4
1
Permafrost
x3
1
Seek Power
x4
2
Defile
x4
2
Nectar of Unlife
x3
2
Quarry
x4
2
Vine Grafter
x4
3
Desecrate
x3
4
Vara, Vengeance-Seeker
x4
4
Vicious Highwayman
x4
4
Waxing Moon
x4
5
Hellfire Valkyrie
x3
6
Black-Sky Harbinger
x4
Fire Sigil
x2
Primal Sigil
x1
Shadow Sigil
x3
Feln Painting
x2
Seat of Chaos
x4
Seat of Cunning
x4
Seat of Fury
x4
Skycrag Cylix
x3
Stonescar Painting
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
Also helps enable Vicious Highwayman.