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Evenhanded Azindel Gauntlet Grinder

Gauntlet Deck By
MaxGen

Work in Progress
+6

Cost Curve

Type

Faction

Information

EDIT: With the current iteration of the decklist I won over 30 Gauntlets completely out of 41 attempts. (Exactly 247 games won, 11 lost.) There is still room for improvement. To play this deck properly one might need some practice.


Oh, Azindel, Revealed... Either your opponent quits immediately or you live long enough to see yourself lose. It's rare that you ever steal cards.

https://i.imgur.com/tDJQrze.jpg


BUT NOW YOU CAN in Gauntlet.

I've been working on a shell that can make use of Azindel, Revealed in Gauntlet - because it's the only place where you can really experience the fun part of playing Azindel, Revealed. And what is almost as much fun as Azindel, Revealed? Correct: Evenhanded Golem!

Are you ready to draw cards, put an Evenhanded Golemback in your hand to draw again, draw a little more with a few Temple Scribes, keep a few Ancient Lores to draw at a later time, block and then teleport your Evenhanded Golem back to prevent damage but also draw some cards on your next turn? Well, then this deck is for you!
Are you ready to go through your deck in search of an answer to a crippling Royal Decree? Well, you don't have to because the A.I. doesn't know this Eternal card and how it can wreck you. But the A.I. knows annoying flying creatures - and you usually find your Gnash, Desert Prince sooner than you need it. What do you mean, you already played Gnash, Desert Prince? Then put him back into your hand with Burdenbearer Wisp or Teleport and play him again.
(Do you know that if you played a Saber-Tooth Prideleader and you put him back into your hand, that the A.I. immediately loses all memory about him and will fall again for his ambush?)

Jokes aside, this deck is a lot of fun. Your endgame is Azindel, Revealed and by proxy whatever your opponents endgame plan was. And something else: You will almost never be mana-screwed.


Opening Hand:
- Never keep a hand with only 1 Power Card. (duh!)
- Keep a hand with an Evenhanded Golem. Even if you start with 2x Azindel, Revealed and you consider them dead cards, your golem will usually draw you enough cards to start clogging up the field with your creatures.

Early Game:
- Try to find out what deck you are playing against. You can basically find every A.I. deck online, buut usually the name tells you what you are up against. This will help with the following tips.
- Pay attention to the power cards your opponent is playing. It can give you a hint what cards you can expect him to play.
- If you start the game with a Teacher of Humility and an Evenhanded Golem consider the following for your turn-2-play: If the oppponent plays Fire, you can expect your Teacher of Humility to catch a Torch. There is an argument to be made to not play her first, but in my experience, if the A.I. doesn't answer her immediately, it will play a creature instead that will not block her. But then again, aggro-decks usually don't play much card draw, so you might opt to sacrifice your Evenhanded Golem to the flames to have a chance to stick your Teacher of Humility.
Tell me how it went. No, really, I need feedback. =)
- If you start the game with a Devotee of the Sands and an Evenhanded Golem, you should play the Devotee of the Sands on turn 2 shifted. This way, you will have 3 Power on turn 3 guaranteed, your Evenhanded Golem can be played then, probably drawing you a 4th Power to play, so you have another 2 Power to play something else.
- If you have to choose between playing Temple Scribe and Evenhanded Golem, then the name of this deck might help you decide.
- You will use Teleport almost always to put your Evenhanded Golem back into your hand after you declared him a blocker.

Mid-Game:
- There is almost no mid-game. Nice!
- Stall, lie, cheat, steal until you get your 8th Power for Azindel. Meanwhile, try to populate the board with your puny creatures.
- As stated before, use Teleport or Burdenbearer Wisp to put your Evenhanded Golem back into your hand after you declared him a blocker. Same goes for other creatures, especially Saber-Tooth Prideleader, and sometimes something that can make Power cards available to you.
- Devour your Talir's Favored and Temple Scribe cards, but preferably after declaring blockers or at the end of the opponents turn.
- Find out if your opponent plays creature with Flying. You might want to start looking for a Gnash, Desert Prince or keep him in your hand. Or put him back into your hand. Or play him, to undo their Aegis, put him back into your hand and play him again. (No kidding, this deck does these things really often.)

Endgame:
- Play Azindel, Revealed and attack with your Devotee of the Sands who just emerged or your flying Burdenbearer Wisps. After that, your enemies gameplan is now yours.
- Why a single Talir, Who Sees Beyond? Because she will draw you something that draws something, and most likely this something has Destiny. It makes me sad to watch Azindel, Revealed go straight to the void because the board is full, but that is usually an indicator that you did nothing wrong.


EXTRA: Card choices:
You've probalby seen 3x Sand Warrior. Basically, this deck many open slots - but they need to be filled with creatures.
I took a comment to heart and tried out Amaran Armadillo and it's working quite nicely. Also, Living Example can be of help sometimes, but I'd rather fill his spot with something that can help, when you are in a pickle.


This deck has been piloted in Gauntlet on Masters.

If you reached this point, thank you for reading. Try out this deck. It is beginner-friendly regarding the Shiftstone cost.
I will update the decklist as I *finally* craft some Sandstorm Titans and try them out.

Evidence:
31th August 2019 - I did five 7-0 runs out of six today and these are some of the screenshots:
https://i.imgur.com/QXdWRIi.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/GJ6R6Wh.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Pvvyd5K.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/LRTrQdr.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/oaQna4V.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/t4XGlkD.jpg



1st September 2019 - I switched a few cards from the original list and won three out of three Gauntlets (21-0) straight. Thanks for the comments and improvment advice! I will keep on testing some unconventional card choices to try and surprise you.
https://i.imgur.com/Uk9rhSL.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/x6sQ3Kq.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/0BrXmwD.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/VffSFG7.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/vnThkeP.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/D19MedJ.jpg

Details

Shiftstone Cost
Does not include campaign cost
25,750

Premium Cost
204,000

Influence Requirements
2 2

Power Sources
24 12 11

Power Calculator
Shiftstoned Icon View Deck on Shiftstoned

Deck Rarities
17 25 5 14

Card Types
38 1 11 0 25

Contains Cards From Campaigns
Into Shadow [Set1004]
Trials of Grodov [Set1006]

Archetype
Midrange

Updated
September 8, 2019

Added
August 31, 2019

Views
3,605

Eternal Version
Dark Frontier

BBCode For Comments

Deck URL

Revisions (Since last major patch) September 6, 2019


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Comments

wildstarr Edited Eternal Version: 1.49.3
Thanks for sharing this deck it was fun. Just one run so far and it was 7-0. And I did super luck out with only 2 life and the AI at 23. I was able to win by the cards I stole from it to stabilize the board.

Edit: And in true Gauntlet style I lost the first game of the second run to power screw and it had every answer to what little I was able to put down.
Gref Eternal Version: 1.46.9
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/fUQdnu9nPqk/even-azindel?view=list

Here's my take on it. Currently 3-1 in Gauntlet runs. Call for Aid and Siphon Vitality are just cards I wanted to shoehorn into the deck.
MaxGen Eternal Version: 1.46.9
Seems interesting, you have thrown a lot of Shadow into the mix. But I wonder if Siphon can really shine... Inspirational!
Gref Eternal Version: 1.46.9
Siphon rarely shines but it is fun to play with.

Shadow brings a lot to the table. Removal that Time doesn't necessarily provide.
birdy512 Eternal Version: 1.46.9
Pioleted the deck to test it out and surprised you are going 7-0 in masters with this deck.
It's way worse than the mono time even deck for one thing.
Rather than a solid gauntlet deck it's a decent deck based on the cards you have.

For example living example and armidilo should be replaced by blackhalls. No idea why you don't have desecrate one of the best removals in the game.
For anti air sandtitans is way better than slimesplitter splug. Burdenwisp is just bad.
Insatiable Serasaur while good is deadweight half the time which is why you don't see it often even though it can ramp immensely.
Sabertooth is a 'market' card because there's only 1 deck that you really need relic removal (and not even needed).
Really need 4 crests and replace talir's favored with 4 trail makers.
Deck's too slow, relies on a lot of luck and not enough consistency considering how many cards you have that don't come in 4's.

Evenhanded gauntlet decks only shine when you have the cards to make it work. Really surprised you managed to luck out with 4 wins when half the cards are poor substitutes for better cards.
MaxGen Edited Eternal Version: 1.46.9
First, I can empirically prove that this deck is consistent: Out of 11 Gauntlets I won nine 7-0 and lost two 6-1. That's a 75-2 ratio. Okay, so let's say, I am the luckiest dude out there for the last two days, then let's consider the following:
- 4x Saber-Tooth Prideleader Is good in Gauntlet, because the A.I. does not consider Ambush, almost always yielding a profitable block, it provides life or destroys relics when needed and it is on color.
- Blackhall Warleader is neither on color, nor does he do anything until she hits the enemy, which is unlikely to occur. Living Example does at least something. The slot for these cards is for experimenting anyway.
- This deck doesn't have hard remoal, because it is trying to throw creatures at your opponent and get you to the endgame ASAP.
- It doesn't need 4 crests, because depleted Power sets you back a turn and this deck - as stated before - is trying to get you to the endgame plan fast.
- Trail Makers will only eat torches, block nothing and make me waste a turn.
- Burdenbearer Wisp is a key-card. Maybe I did not explain quite good enoug: You use Teleports and Burdenbearer Wisps to bring back your Evenhanded Golems. Basically, for 4 Power you draw 2 cards. That means, with 4x Golem, 4x Teleport, 4x Burdenbearer Wisp, 3x Ancient Lore, 2x Devour, one has 17 possibilities to draw 2 cards. Saying "Burdenwisp is just bad" is as much an argument as me saying "nope, it's not".

Last but not least, let me explain the core concept of this deck:
You have 28 cards that cost 2 or less Power, and with a redraw, there is a probability of 100% to have 2 Power on turn 2. I don't want to write a statistics paper on this deck, but that means, that there is an extremely high chance to have 4 Power on turn 4, which lets you play the rest of the card-draw-shenanigans. Bascially, it is almost certain to have 6 Power on turn 6 and 8 Power on turn 9. Average win by turn 11. Look at the screenshots.
I also mentioned in the description, that there are 9 cards, that can be exchanged, but they have to be creatures and on color.

Also, please don't take this the wrong way, because I appreciate your comment: I would really like to know how you play this deck.
Maybe you don't play it right or maybe I expected the wrong things and did not explain well enough how to play it.

PS: The statistics on Shiftstoned.com might be interesting.
birdy512 Eternal Version: 1.46.9
I Get where you are coming from, but I'd like to point out 'masters' is only based on what you achieved. If you lose 10-20 games after you hit masters for example you still end up at bronze even with a masters badge. So the first 4-5 runs after hitting bronze doesn't really count as masters. That's the same flaw you'll see with many "100% win rate" gauntlet decks because they go 4-0 after dropping back to bronze. After that the winrate will drop a LOT and the best gauntlet decks (those that cost like 80k+ forgestones) have a 50% win rate including the mono time evenhanded deck.

As for why I think your deck is weak and I think you are lucky is that I died with your deck 2nd round turn5. Died to a 8/8 aegis lifeleech flier(combrei) which I could do nothing about with your deck. Your deck has been lucky because it has no 'answers' for a lot of potential situations which is what the best gauntlet decks have, answers for every situation.

Why you see a lot of good shadow incorporated decks use warhall is because it's a 2/3 blocker for COST 2 that is superior to warcry in everyway. 2nd round 99% of the time the cards will be 2-2 at most and a 2-3 means without bolt/removal will certainly end up being a 3-4 blocker. Under the same situation warhall is simply better than a 2/2 inspire 100% of the time simply because turn 3 means bolt won't work on it. Turn 6-7 warhall is less useful than it, but at the same time turn 6-7 it shouldn't matter anyway.

Why crests are GOOD is that it solves influence problem and allows you to scout and fix upcoming cards.
But I can see why your deck doesn't use it since it's 90% timebased and the few shadowcards you have doesn't actually improve the deck at all.
As I said previously, it's a poor mans time evenhanded deck which is superior to this deck in everyway with the main difference being it has Azindel.

Fyi the improved mono time evenhanded deck I use doesn't even have Talir, since 90% of the time games over before turn 8 even though it has a way better powercurve and draw than your deck because cost 8 cards are a deadweight 99% of the time (games decided before you have 8 power).

I do have a shadow/time evenhanded deck but it's around 50/50 split with blackhalls, varas , removal and has a similar gauntlet winrate to the evenhanded deck (50%~).

MaxGen Eternal Version: 1.46.9
I see! Thank you very much for your answer.
You make valid points and I will calculate and test each idea proposed in this thread.
wrinklykiller Eternal Version: 1.46.9
I made an account here to comment. This seems like it works well, your results don't lie, but I've been getting crushed by combrei decks pretty much one after another. Combrei alliance wrecked me, followed by ancient power, then the enlightened was the worst. Not having an answer to the crazy power ramp and massive creatures hurts while you wait around for 8 power and some deadly units... maybe some spot removal or smaller deadly units are in order? I'm sorta unfamiliar with xenan, but I'm working on keys cards still. I have everything but the teachers and I subbed sand warriors and some other stuff for her, but I don't think it would've mattered if i had her in these situations.
MaxGen Eternal Version: 1.46.9
Hey, thanks for commenting! You actually don't need Teacher for this deck, but she is a value card that can die to removal without you feeling bad about it. You could consider replacing her with a 2-Power wall, just to stop aggressive decks.
Concerning Combrei: I admit, that Combrei wasn't a problem for me yet, but I can see that there might be a threat. I advice you to keep your creatures as long as you can and only start blocking to protect you from dying. Try to keep a hand with Azindel when playing against Combrei (but always prioritize a hand with a Golem), since he can steal their key-cards. Only block with Golem if you can bring him back or if you have another one already in your hand.
I will try out some builds today to counter your problem =)
EatYourBeetS Edited Eternal Version: 1.46.9
Quite a fun deck!
I didn't have any copies of teacher so I replaced it with Living Example and it seems like a perfect fit for the deck, it's not seen as much of a threat (the A.I. will target burdenbearer wisp first), so it will generate insane value with all the sources of card draw
Makash Eternal Version: 1.46.9
First of all, i like the deck, especially since i'm currently testing a lot of Stuff with Xenan.
Just like you did i swapped Teacher of Humility (eventhough i have 4 copies), but i swapped it for Amaran Armadillo, because it gives my units Endurcance and that just kills all the Stun decks & gives +1/+1 to all the Endurance units aslong as Amrmadillo is in play
EatYourBeetS Eternal Version: 1.46.9
That also seems like a good addition, will try it when I'll have some more shiftstone
MaxGen Eternal Version: 1.46.9
That's a legit idea! I will try it out. Basically, this deck's structure seems very flexible, so replacing Teacher of Humility should be no problem. I would have liked to have more creatures that draw cards, but keeping Evenhanded Golem active requires even Power costs.
Thank you for commenting. I am going to refine this list soon!
EatYourBeetS Eternal Version: 1.46.9
I have also added 3xCull the Deck and 3xVara, Vengeance-Seeker to make a bit more use of the shadow influence, replacing Ancient Lore and some of the 4-drops
MaxGen Eternal Version: 1.46.9
This seems like a good idea. I've experimented with Vara, Vengeance-Seeker quite a bit, but the double Shadow cost made me run into problems with the Power. Cull the Deck on the other hand seems like a legit alternative to Ancient Lore. Thank you for the tip!