Ringmaster Roundup

Did you get four brand new alt-art Argenport Ringmasters and are dying to play with them? Do you enjoy playing with fun, non-competitive decks and underused cards? Are you a Feln Boi? If you answered yes to any of these questions, perhaps Ringmaster Roundup is a deck for you.

General Strategy
This deck is loaded with deadly units in order to take advantage of cards that allow those units to ping deadly damage to enemy units. At the top end of this deck is our beloved Argenport Ringmaster. His roles is to infiltrate the opponent and recruit all their sweet units from the void.

Card Breakdown: Units

Direfang Spider: This card was a 4-of in the first iterations but proved too fragile when it couldn't be protected. Vara's Favor is this cards worse enemy. Nevertheless, it is an early deadly unit and provides synergy with our pinging effects.

Olly, Maniacal Graverobber: Another fragile unit, this one has the benefit of being shifted and having quickdraw. The shift ability is nice when you already have a board and want some protection from spot removal; obviously the downside is you can't use your ping effects on Olly while shifted. The quickdraw makes Olly a decent target for Savagery, allowing a kill on any unit without trading.

Blight Pass Smuggler: Expedition Feln merchant. The unit itself does not have any synergies with the deck, and I would recommend Kerendon Merchant if it's available in the format.

Darkweave Enchantress: A recent addition to this deck, and as a 0/4 twist 5 it's questionable. Enchantress is deadly and can take advantage of all the benefits of our ping cards even with 0 attack. Her twist ability also enables Felrauk's Choice.

Temple Shihan: No deadly synergies, but it adds a lot of utility with it's curse and inspire ability. For the inspire effect, we have two infiltrate units that could use flying to sneak past the ground units. We can also "create" flying units via emblems and Incarnus's Invoke.

Incarnus, Makkar's Listener: This is purely a value card: It provides options and is a good target for removal (which is one less removal for Argenport Ringmaster).

Lethrai Provocateur: A beefier deadly unit that has a potentially powerful infiltrate. Many decks use weapons in Expedition, particularly Stonescar, Rakano, and Elysian. Provocateur can remove those tools from their toolbox while still advancing the deadly unit game plan.

Argenport Ringmaster: This deck's namesake. Ringmaster was originally in the market, but it feels much better to play with four copies in the main deck. He's a huge threat, especially if your opponent has any good units in the void. His infiltrate can be enabled with Savagery (if you're opponent has a small unit on the board), Icebow, and Secret Passage from the market. Temple Shihan might also give it flying for evasion over ground units.

Card Breakdown: Ping enablers

Savagery: Not really a ping effect, but with all our deadly units it can help take down a threat. Prime targets for this spell are Argenport Ringmaster, Olly, Maniacal Graverobber, and situationally Lethrai Provocateur. Savagery is vulnerable to fast spells that can remove your unit, and via ambush.

Parry: A great card for your deadly units. At best this can 3 for one your opponent as a combat trick. Sometimes it's necessary to use the effect out of combat just to get a big threat off the board. Note that Parry will kill the target even if your unit is removed via a fast spell.

Icebow: An expensive ping card but it has it's utility. It enable infiltrate units (like our Ringmaster) and allows deadly units to take out a threat. Note that Icebow's effect cannot be negated (except by aegis), which gives it some situational benefits over the other options.

Card Breakdown: Misc

Felrauk's Choice: Both choices work with our game plan. We have a very limited selection of curses, but some of our units have incidental curses that can enable the first choice. The second choice is meant to protect our units and board state. We want to keep Ringmaster alive before the infiltrate, and this card can help accomplish that.

Wisdom of the Elders: Drawing cards is fun and fundamental.

Vara's Favor and Seek Power: We need power in this deck and these card fetch them. It may be worth holding onto one of these cards if you expect the opponent to playing Daring Gryffyn; it's cheap fodder for the negate and can be followed up with a ping effect to take out the exalted target.

Emblem of Makkar: The death elemental works with the game plan. Be careful when decimating early in the game since we want to get to 6/7 power.

Emblem of Linrei: Not necessary for this deck, but we don't have a ton of units and the Ice Elemental can helpful in a pinch. Be careful when decimating early in the game since we want to get to 6/7 power.

Card Breakdown: Market

Secret Passage: This is a cheap option to enable infiltrate for the Ringmaster.

Immortalize: There are many good targets for immortalize, particular ones with killer and overwhelm.

Fell Ritual: A kill spell.

Malediction: A sweep for weenies. Sadly we also have a lot of weenies that will die from this spell, but the spell is great in certain situations.

Dizo's Office: More top end. Take this out in the late game when you have plenty of power and need things to do.

Strengths

This deck has performed well against decks with large threats and limited removal. The deadly units can hold off the ground mastery strategy and our pinging effects can take care of units that don't engage combat but provide utility just from being on the board (e.g. Inspire units).

Weaknesses

This deck relies on the deadly/ping synergy to perform optimally, and like all synergy decks it feels bad when the pieces aren't available when you need them. Most units are vulnerable to sweepers like Malediction. Although we have some defense against air strategies like Dragons, it's unreliable and we could easily be overwhelmed. Site can be problematic since our units are few and generally quite small. Decks that have no units counter this deck (fortunately there aren't many of those in Expedition).