Welcome to ColumW's Argenport Gauntlet Grinder. This goal of this deck is to never lose gauntlet games.
Win conditions:
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Rolant, Iron Tyrant becomes huge and makes an army of deadly fliers. Sometimes it's best to save Rolant until you have enough mana to play him AND hold up fast removal simultaneously. Defiance on a small attacker will create a
Silverblade Reaper at fast speed.
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Poacher's Menagerie from the market. Grab this against almost any deck, but especially against AI decks that like to run 4
Harsh Rule
-Beatdown!
Tarra, Ever Loyal,
Blackhall Warleader. Getting these to survive and smash face wins a hefty portion of games. Previous versions of the deck leaned more into this territory, but that makes us soft to Harsh Rule and Flying aggro decks.
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Justice Sketch can create a huge monster given enough time. But don't be afraid to play this as straight power if you have other game plans. The Amplify 5: Research Lab is just a backup plan.
Tricks up our sleeve:
-Casting
Feed the Hecaton on
Hojan, Crownbreaker after playing a power will kill two opposing creatures and ramp you. Devastating against most AI.
-The AI doesn't know how to evaluate Tarra and her 'apprentice', or
Jada, Peacekeeper. You can usually attack with Jada as a 4/5 and the AI won't block, nor will the AI attack into you when it should.
Dangerous Gambit is nearly always a 2-for-1, because you'll often have strong attackers like a 4/3 Hojan, a 2/3 Blackhall, or a 6/6 Tarra.
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Steyer's Eyes is something of a consistency all-star, as this grabs power when we need it, or triggers renown and gives extra lifesteal to Hojan, or completely dumpsters a few AI decks with
Adjudicator's Gavel
-Often you may want to wait to play Hojan until you have protection available, or can trigger his ramp using
Justice Etchings etc.
Other completely busted cards that didn't quite make the cut:
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Sediti, the Killing Steel. Super powerful, but could potentially lose us a game if we draw two of these in the opening hand.
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Kira Ascending. Another version of the deck ran Kira with more combat tricks like
Finest Hour. That deck won much harder and often faster, but I've found a lot more consistency when choosing not to run Kira.
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Vara, Vengeance-Seeker. Vara is so powerful due to her lifesteal, forced sacrifice, and the aegis removal. However, I found that Rolant was more than enough because 1/1 flying deadly creatures don't really care about aegis.
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Hojan, Beloved Son - Another win condition. I think if we needed another win condition, this would be it. I used to have this Hojan in the market, but I just simply never needed it, so I'm trying
Stormhalt Plating in its place.
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Nothing Remains. Could be used in the market in place of
Pristine Light. We'll never be drawing units from our graveyard, so it's never bad.
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Regent's Tomb. This is the market win condition that became Poacher's Menagerie. Still pretty solid though.
Places this deck could be improved
-Better players could probably do a slightly better job with the mana base, and/or switching removal around.
-Might be that
Finest Hour should be added in place of
Silverblade Intrusion
-As far as gold farming, other decks may do better simply because they win faster. This one still moves at a good pace in my experience.
Happy to see someone with similar goal in gauntlet.
I love to tune up my AP gauntlet list. Here's my old build: Gauntlet Pile of Removals
We have tons of good cards to test out in recent set. (Previous ones weren't so)
I was doing some adventures on making good spot for General Fiera. When I look for something safer, I should check this list out.
Happy Grinding.