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The Bears and the Bees [Masters]

Expedition Deck By
mookie

+3

Cost Curve

Type

Faction

Information

News set, new brews! This is deck was built around Vara, Death's Master and Recovery, both of which are very powerful ways to reuse powerful summon effects like Hive Queen Uther, Ziat, Steelwarren Reeve, and Sashenka of Kosul. A full playset of three different Cylixes gives the deck a ton of lategame value, while Feed the Hecaton and other cheap removal provide some early disruption.

Units


Lunar Magus - an efficient body to block in the early game plus gain some life - all the nightfall means this deck takes a lot of incidental damage, so having some way to help stabilize is quite nice. It also provides the perfect statline for Feed the Hecaton
Direwood Pack - an obnoxious card for opponents to deal with, but the main reason for it is the inscribe - this deck needs all the power it can get, and can't support Seek Power. Don't be afraid to trade it off aggressively.
Pincer Ant - like Lunar Magus, it provides nightfall and a body for Feed the Hecaton. Even better if you can killer something, and the extra tax provides a nice bit of disruption.
Ziat, Steelwarren Reeve - more disruption on a solid body. Knowing the right card to take from your opponent's hand takes some practice, but it is a powerful effect.
Insatiable Anteater - rounding out the nighfall trio of cards, Anteater provides a solid body and a draw engine, usually drawing a card immediately to replace itself.
Krogar, Burdened Hero - flex slot. Another solid body attached to some disruption, plus some lifegain to help stabilize.
Hive Queen Uther - nerfed, but still a fantastic card. An excellent stabilization tool, efficient blocker, and lifegain engine. Consider going up to the full four.
Vara, Death's Master - a bit of a meme, but very capable of winning games as long as you can stick a single other body to recur with her. Don't ignore her ability to steal skills either - I've won plenty of games with giant flying Varas. She can be awkward against opposing decks that are able to keep the board clear though, since she's much weaker if she doesn't have a friend.
Sashenka of Kosul - an absurd topend unit, providing removal, extra bodies to go wide, or more card draw.

Attachments


Permafrost - cheap interaction. At its best against aggro, but also sometimes awkward with Feed the Hecaton.
Hidden Garrote - flex slot. More cheap interaction. There are a lot of important cards to kill that dodge it (such as pretty much all the units in this deck), but popping face aegis for Feed the Hecaton and Ziat is pretty important.

Spells


Feed the Hecaton - an absurd removal spell in any midrange mirror (and backbreaking when cast against this deck). It takes a bit of setup, but killing two things with it is often enough to win the game on the spot. It can be awkward against face aegis though.
Recovery - cheap card advantage (in the lategame, at least). Rebuying a key card and protecting a unit from removal provides some nice value.
Shrivel - more cheap interaction. Consider going up to the full four if you want more things to do early.
Skullmarket Delivery - market access.
Vara's Favor - another cheap effect to pop aegis, and also a bit of early disruption for aggro.

Power


The influence requirements for this deck are... ambitious, to say the least. It has three factions, a bunch of double and triple-influence cost cards, and wants to play 6 and 7-cost cards. As a result, it needs a ton of fixing, plus some extra help from inscribe cards and Vara's Favor. I'm running the full playset of Cylixes, plus Tomes and Xultan Conclave for more fixing.

Market


Running a Shadow market due to its versatile disruption suite.
Containment Sphere is mostly here for inscribing, but it's also occasionally useful as a tech card against reanimator.
Wildlands Scavenging is here as relic removal. It's not always enough against relic-heavy decks, but most decks don't have that many.
Dangerous Gambit is an extra removal spell.
Devastating Setback is a flexible piece of interaction, serving as a board wipe against aggro or discard against slower decks.
Hecaton, Centipede God is a lategame win condition and stabilization tool. It's also absurd to recur with Recovery or Vara.

Gameplay


This deck aims for the long game - no fast wins here. It's slow and grindy, with lots of tools to disrupt faster decks, but plenty of ways to outvalue slower decks in the lategame. It often starts out on the back foot due to its often-depleted power base, but the beefy units make it good at stabilizing once you can hit 4 power or so. Don't keep hands with less than 3 power - it really needs all the power it can get.

Expedition Information

Details

Shiftstone Cost
Does not include campaign cost
46,350

Premium Cost
218,400

Influence Requirements
3 2 3

Power Sources
15 11 14 19 4

Power Calculator
Shiftstoned Icon View Deck on Shiftstoned

Deck Rarities
3 23 41 8 3

Card Types
31 5 19 0 25

Contains Cards From Campaigns
Enter the Arcanum [Set1135]

Archetype
Combo Midrange

Added
February 13, 2023

Views
2,412

Eternal Version
Behemoths of Thera

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Deck URL

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Comments

WinterWolf1297 Eternal Version: 23.02.08
At first glance I see no midnight reprieve and wonder why.
WinterWolf1297 Eternal Version: 23.02.08
Then again my versions are just garbage so maybe it doesn't matter.
mookie Eternal Version: 23.02.08
Lack of space - I'm running as many powers that produce two influence as possible to support the cylixes, and Xultan Conclave to at least have some undepleted power. You could drop the shadow sigils (and Vara's Favor) for it if you needed extra fixing. I wouldn't run it over Direwood Pack though.
abbaabbaabba Eternal Version: 23.02.08
Primal simply doesn't belong in this deck. Sashenka costs 7, so it's a late game card--and you only run 3 copies of it. You also only run 2 x Permafrost.

So why even include Primal? Just so you can can occasionally pull off Vara + Sashenka?

Just remove all the "blue cards", add more copies of the Xenan cards that also work with Vara, and make the power base more consistent.
Capnfrost Eternal Version: 23.02.08
I agree with this. The average CMC of this deck is 4. The meta is relatively quick and you are often doing nothing until turn 4 due to the mostly depleted power base. I played 4 games and only won to argenportcardsihave.dec
mookie Eternal Version: 23.02.08
Ha, no arguments here - I was actually quite surprised when I climbed to masters with this, since it is certainly a slow deck. That said, I did try out a more traditional Xenan deck prior to this and had worse results with it, so YMMV. I'll note that when I was laddering, most of the decks I encountered were slower Xenan, Feln, and Creation decks, which meant that drawing 3-4 extra cards off cylixes in the lategame helped me to outgrind them and go over the top. On the flip side, the matchup against fire-based aggro felt pretty rough, and I wouldn't recommend it if you see lots of faster decks.