Winchest Armory

A very "old school" approach to Armory. Went on an 8-1 run from Diamond 2 to Masters with this, finishing 12-3. My teammate TheRocke decided to pilot it for Casual Friday to put it through it's paces some more. I had a previous version with Slay, Quarry, Maiden, Winchest Cargo, more Crests in the power base etc. that did fine earlier in the week (12-8 record), but I felt like I could make it better by putting more emphasis on Fire/Justice and less on Shadow and rework the power base to be able to make early plays more often with more undepleted power.

The result is a deck that runs much smoother because it doesn't have to worry about getting an influence from 3 different factions in the first 2 turns. Also, I get to run Avigraft maindeck because of this (it was in the Market before). Avigraft is REALLY good in Armory. Better than in other decks that run Avigraft maindeck in my opinion. Shuts down token strategies (Grenadin), Vara/Caiphus recursion shenanigans and just big ground units in general if you haven't buffed your weapons enough.

I'm back to my shenanigans with Whetstone in Armory, a perceived bad card by many (including myself at first). Right now, though, I feel like if you're going this old-school with this many relic weapons (12 with Brel included), you need more than just Artisan/Rise. Whetstone is for redundancy (Artisan copies 5 thru 7) and buffs weapons you've already drawn before you've seen an Artisan or Rise, which will happen in many games. A lot of times people have asked "does Whetstone even matter?". I've lost count of how many times my relic weapon was a point of damage off from killing something, even with an Artisan buff. Multiple buffs from Whetstone + Artisan help your weapons kill stuff like Xo, pumped up Varas, etc. I actually tried a list at the end of the set 4 meta with Vara and Tavrod + Honor the Ancestors, thinking Tavrod was just better than Whetstone. The deck was awful. Vara warped the power base. Tavrod has to attack to even get value and often dies before that happens and Ancestors sucks if you can't buff your weapons prior. Anyway, 5/4 mallet with Brel is appreciated. 5/1 Runehammmers are REALLY appreciated without needing to take a turn to Rise (I get to Rise for something else - like Daisho or a Warden to try and kill Peak). Also, you'd be surprised how often Whetstone changes your 3-turn clock weapon into a 2-turn clock weapon. Whetstone + Daisho is insane, in particular.

Also turn 5 Harsh Rule into turn 6 Daisho into turn 7 Brel is a cool thing.

Anyway, I didn't want to do a full card-by-card write up. It's only even this long because I ramble :). I'm still tweaking this and don't claim this to be amazing or anything that will break the meta we're in. Peak itself sounds scary since your only counterplay is Rise for Warden, but you can basically kill anything else they play with a relic weapon since Armory usually doesn't care about Aegis and if you keep the board clear, Peak isn't doing much. Rolant's Favor is something I'm not sure on. Turn 2 Favor into turn 3 Sword of Icaria has come up a lot lately and has been sweet every time, but Cargo might still be a little better. I hated Cargo last time though since my deck curves to 7 and the transmute screwed me a few times. I don't want to have to do gymnastics with my power just to keep it as a Cargo either. Also, I'm keeping an eye of Sword of Icaria. I feel like it's actually the key card in an old school Armory package like this one with Artisans etc. If it wasn't in here, this deck would look a lot different and I'd probably take the same approach my other teammate Erik9099 did with his Armory list (no Artisans, just Wardens, Runehammer, Molten Fist and a bunch of ways to search out and reanimate Molten Fist), which I see a few people have copied with their set 5 Armory list on this website. If this continues to do well and/or people really want a full card-by-card breakdown, I'll do it.