Rally Queen (Updated for The Dusk Road)

I don't always do write-ups for my decks...honestly that's usually because I upload them while streaming and don't have time to go into too much depth.

To most of you, this list looks very familiar, and that's because the basic premise of "play little dudes, play Rally, ..., profit" hasn't gone anywhere. But, this is a list updated for The Dusk Road, and boy did this set make this deck even better

Without diving too far into the deck's gameplan, which most of you are very familiar with anyway, I'd like to talk about some of the changes and why.

For starters, some cards are missing! Ruthless Stranger, Shadowland's Guide, and Lurking Sanguar are all gone from the most recent versions of this deck. Why is that? Well...

Ruthless Stranger:This card might have caused more backlash than any other in the original version. "Why play a card that has no other synergies?" They'd say. Well, the answer is that a 2/1 for 1 is really all the deck is looking for, and sometimes you can even have two 3/1's for 1. I think that the Stranger is still very strong in this deck and I'm not opposed to adding them back in. It's the best card that isn't in the deck I think. But, with only 75 cards to work with, some sacrifices needed to be made.

Shadowlands Guide: Guide is a very powerful card...sometimes. It is often a huge Grenadin Drone that creates an Oni Ronin instead of a Grenadin. It can sometimes even be an Assembly Line that gives one of the tokens +2/+0. But, and I'll talk about this in the next paragraph, it was at it's absolute best when it got back a 4/2 Lifesteal from the void. Sanguar is no longer in the deck, so it became harder to justify playing a card that can be stuck in your hand a lot. This deck is no longer trying to win through recursion, and Guide would be out of place in this version.

Lurking Sanguar: This is a card that a lot of people fear, so why is it gone? Well, I've played Rally a lot and even though the tempo swing of even one free Sanguar is powerful, the deck's ability of shutting off part of your opponent's removal suite, namely Vanquish, is kind of stretched when you only play one target in your deck. If you don't play anything that dies to Vanquish, you've created card advantage by having a card be literally uncastable in their hand. That's what we're doing here. Sanguar very rarely got to attack in this new day-and-age, and I felt a little better about playing without it.

Diplomatic Seal was simply phased out by the Waystones. In order to leave room for actual Sigils (which is relevant for the Seats,) the sacrifice of Seals was made.

And now, what have we added? Well, Stonescar Sneak is the big one, but don't underestimate this deck's new Waystones. Let's talk about it!

Stonescar Sneak is an absolute house! This is your new engine card. It allows you to make profitable attacks into Combrei Healer's and such, it makes your Pyroknight an Overwhelming menace. But, most importantly, it allows you to get the benefits of a Rapid Shot without using valuable cards to do it. This card creates card advantage by letting you push your board advantage without needing to use cards. Then, once you've accrued enough power, you'll be able to A+Space backed up by Rally+Rapid Shot. So much goodness with this card and it is currently the single best reason to play this deck.

Granite Waystone: Obviously this deck would benefit from a power that also makes a unit. There's not too much to say about this specific Waystone. The real meat is in the other one...

Amethyst Waystone: The common thought was that Nightfall would benefit aggressive decks more than slower decks. Well, even though this is the only way to create Night in this deck, that thought is correct. Being a combination of an extra potential finisher AND a 1 damage burn spell (which does add up, it's nice to get the opponent to 1 and have extra ways to close the game) makes this card incredibly valuable in the deck we're building. I'm not sure if other people were playing 4 of both Waystones, but I think it's 110% the best thing to do in this deck.

Purge the Darkness is kind of experimental here. I initially pegged it as a very strong effect, as 4 damage for 3 power is very efficient. Night ending is a weird bit of text that isn't really relevant (although I've seen more than one Winter's Grasp deck) so I don't care much about that. But just being a little bit of extra reach for situations where you can no longer attack seems worth trying out. As a 1-of it isn't diluting the deck very much but if it starts to overperform then adding a second one might be worth it.

Cinder Yeti: This isn't really new from The Dusk Road, but is new in the deck. This slot used to be occupied by Shadowlands Guide but in the new context of the deck, our Yeti friend fits better. It is a good thing to buff with Sneak, it provides a bit of card advantage by having Warp, and pushes attackers through ugly boards. So, without Sanguar making Shadowlands Guide great, this is our 3-power card advantage card of choice.

Thanks for reading everybody! I hope this new version works as well for you as it is for me.