No one expects Charging Tavrod - Masters Jan 2018

Earlier in the month, I had stalled out in Gold 2 with a variety of other decks, when I decided to revisit my "Tavrod, Auric Broker splash Warhelm" deck from pre-Set 3. My notes had said "Okay, but misses influence and loses to aggro/burn". Did Set 3 add anything to help with that?

You betcha. 8 crests help smooth out the influence requirements and acts as pseudo draw. Whirling Duo really helps the aggro matchup AND acts as reach with any weapon hit by Tavrod (for example, after a board wipe).

The deck is really quite flexible: Auric Bully sometimes acts as a tempo play when it wears a turn 3 Bloodletter. Sometimes it acts as Torch sponge, so the other 3 health units can live and get their respective advantages. Sometimes against Feln, the deck imitates Armory and hits face with Auric Runehammer 4 turns in a row.

Most importantly, this deck has some element of surprise with the 8 sources of charge damage, which is great for ladder. I beat several opponents who failed to leave back any blockers and I would kill them from 14 or so with charge units, especially those that had been buffed by Tavrod.

On ladder, I usually mulliganed for torch, lifesteal, or decent influence - This deck needs FJS to operate okay, FJJSS to get 74 of the 75 cards playable (Icaria, the Liberator being the special snowflake).

Power screw was not common with 28 power + 1 Privilege of Rank (which sometimes got value of a Tavrod swing or Quarry, although sometimes the dearth of depleted power felt bad. I did keep track for 15 games or so - seats were better than banners most times, as they let me tempo out several opponents in the early game. If anyone has any suggestions for a tweaked power base, I'm all ears.

I estimate I had about a 60-65% win rate on ladder, with the best matchups being against Armory (Protect negating Harsh Rule and charging units to beat their weapons) and Feln (they don't have enough fast removal)

The sideboard has cards for the less good matchups - more removal for big time decks, attachment hate for Temporal Control/Chalice, and void hate for Dawnwalker and Reanimator/Scream decks, although I found with a good tempo draw, those matchups are still pretty winnable. A meta-dependant addition would be Plague or Devastating Setback, if token heavy decks are popular.