[Mid Budget] Big’uns

*****If you have “the Devouring” expansion, I did make a variation of this deck which runs as follows: -3 Auric Record Keeper, -2 Elite Myrmidon, -1 Emperor Cobra, +4 Riftfeeder Wasp, +2 First Shipment*****

Here is my take on a traditional, ramp/big boys Combrei deck but in a mid-budget variant for those players who have a few more cards and a little more shiftstone to play with. This deck contains commons, uncommons, a small assortment of Chapter cards, and 4 Rare cards. The two copies of Snoozing Sloth and Predatory Carnosaur are worth the shiftstone as they do see play in higher level decks.

Cards from Chapters:
Cuno, Localized Rewind - nice little trick card against fast decks and big damage plays from our opponent. Cuno is an underrated card in my opinion. In a fair number of matchups, he runs for high tempo and high value. A well timed Cuno can completely interrupt an opponent’s gameplan. Not only does it set their lethal clock back a full turn (usually 2), but now the threat of a second Cuno lives in their head rent free.
Veena's Masterpiece - just buy the “A New Queen” chapter. Veena’s Masterpiece creates more difficult units for your opponent to deal with, it offers card draw, it (sometimes) baits out cards such asReeve's Mandate, and it’s in almost every Time deck right now. As for the chapter itself, Tenacious Heron is quite good in Feln or FPS decks. Veena, Rising Queen has phenomal value in Honey Relic decks right now. And First Shipment is a nice card for ramp, resource extension, and lifegain in slower lists.

Svetya, Demand Justice - this card is kind of the bread and butter of the list in it’s present state. Svetya slows down your opponent significantly with her stun ability, and she buffs your own units permanently. You can use Killer from On the Prowl to activate her ability, you can also use Predatory Carnosaur or Emperor Cobra to help remove pesky units preventing her from attacking. You can also use her in tandem with Snoozing Sloth to safely attack and get that cheeky +1/+1 buff to all your units. In my testing so far she has had more quite a bit more value than I originally thought.

I’ll just briefly address the two rare cards in the deck. Snoozing Sloth is simply a value play. Use him for big damage swings against the opponent, or to help clean up a board when your opponent is forced to block. The added endurance makes sure you can still block the following turn. Extremely devastating against more aggressive lists and any damage based removal decks. Predatory Carnosaur is simply a big pain in the ass for the opponent that also doubles as a nice 6 damage removal. Again, worth the shiftstone, and you should already have one from the Combrei starter deck and from finishing the first part of the game.

Lastly I’ll go over some of the budget choices in the deck:
Calming Melody - budget replacement for Stand Together with the extra text “units can’t fly this turn” which has it’s use from time to time. Generally we’re just using this card the way we’d use Stand Together.

Auric Record Keeper - just a decent 3-cost 4/4 body with a cheeky +1/+1 buff from his entomb. We’d rather run a better unit such as Skysplitter here, but Record Keeper works for now (if you have any copies of Skysplitter, use them in place of Record Keeper lol)

Elite Myrmidon - same thing as Auric Record keeper. Could be replaced with a third copy of Snoozing Sloth and a 4th copy of Record Keeper if you so please. Only running this card to stick to the 4 rares rule of a mid-budget deck whilst maintaining fairly healthy bodies that synergize with Veena’s Masterpiece.

Jackal King - fun little top end card that gives us a big body in the mid to late game turns. His ability gains us life (sometimes only 3, sometimes 10.. it all depends on the matchup) and he stays in the list in place of better cards like Riftfeeder Wasp (card from “The Devouring” expansion. With so many cards from chapters it felt excessive to include cards from any expansion as this is still supposed to be a cheaper deck for newish players), or Boar Riders (if you have it, feel free to use it. Boar Riders is significantly more valuable than Jackal King, but again did not make the list due to the budget constraints.

*****If you have “the Devouring” expansion, I did make a variation of this deck which runs as follows: -3 Auric Record Keeper, -2 Elite Myrmidon, -1 Emperor Cobra, +4 Riftfeeder Wasp, +2 First Shipment*****