[Masters] Elysian Control - September 2023

Law 15: Crush your enemy, totally. -Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power.

This deck got me to Masters on September 21, 2023. The original idea was by Buckwheat, who piloted the Midrange Deck that I broke down a ton of Throne Legendary cards to build. After running his deck to Diamond tier 3, I kept hitting errors, and needed some replacements that fit more of my style, which was control.

Perhaps, I was running the deck incorrectly? Who knows.

The main edit was dropping Marauder down to two, and Discovery down to three, and running Backlash in their place, which seemed to have been the right fit. In the Market, Formbend and the lone sigil were dropped in favor of Crackling Bauble, and Rain of Frogs. Each card in the market squeezed out a victory for me at least once, with Rain of Frogs doing a lot of work on the back-end of the match.

Key takeaways from the running of the deck:

Maul sucks, if you play it, you're a terrible person. Keep an aegis up for Maul, and hope Backlash is in your hand as it was when I won masters (thanks player who rage-roped after that).

Getting to two or three pips of each influence can be a challenge, even with nearly half dual-influence cards in the deck. You really need to look at the opening hand, and consider if you can risk doing nothing for a few rounds. Once you hit two Time, you're mostly golden, and hitting three Primal should be enough for you to start working the deck in your favor.

This was born of a midrange deck, but I feel it's more control-based, with some key moves and plays. If you need to spend turns just negating aggressive plays or shutting down meta, then do so. Anytime I saw the Pyromancer on turn one, I knew I needed Heavy Hail or Marauder to go as wide as they do.

I honestly got mad every time I drew two Big Bears in my opening hand, and it happened a lot more than I think people would like to admit.

Living Reflection will win you games. People will dump cards into Lipa, just to pull her off the board, so constantly making copies of her does a lot to shut down opponents.

Don't forget to "BWAHAHAHAHAH!" after you win. Because you should crush your enemy, totally.