Night Maul is the only "true" tempo-based strategy currently alive in the Eternal metagame. Basically, our game plan is to trigger Nightfall every turn, starting turn 1 if possible with Gloaming Wisp, until we hit 6 power, and then we hit our opponent with a Maul for 14-18 damage to close out the game. There is obviously inherent risk with giving your opponent more cards to work with, but our deck leverages this with cheap (if temporary) removal and aggressive units that almost always come with extra reach attached in the form of Nightfall. If all else fails, we can still a+space for the win a lot of the time, utilizing our 8 merchants to have consistent access to out impactful Market cards.
I redraw any opening hand without a turn 1/2 Nightfall unit, as having one early unlocks the rest of the deck and lets you dig for whatever you're missing You should prioritize activating Nightfall over running out a turn 3 Merchant/ Smuggler, as having more gas is more important than having a 6 cost spell rotting in your hand. Be Gone is often used to reset Nightfall by bouncing one of our own units, and Teleport is most often used to save our Nightfall units from removal. It's often correct to just grab Mirror Image with the first Jennev Merchant to make an extra Aegis threat and grab Maul on a later turn. If you can, save Equivocate for later turns against Primal decks, as the transform half of the spell will break their face Aegis, allowing for Maul to actually resolve. Another thing to note is that multiple instances of Nightfall triggered in the same turn don't stack; if you play Gloaming Wisp and Dusk Raider in the same turn, you'll still only get 1 turn cycle of night. For this reason, you often don't want to play multiple units in the same turn, unless one of them doesn't have Nightfall.
Popular matchups:
FJx Midrange (
Howling Peak/
Rizahn, Greatbow Master +
Cauldron Cookbook, etc): This matchup is heavily favored, and the reason to play the deck currently. Our Nightfall units fill up their hand, and Maul kills them before they can empty it. We need to be conscious of
Hailstorm and
Cobalt Waystone from FPJ, but FJS often feels like a bye.
FTP Midrange: This matchup is a bit trickier, as their deck often plays multiple
Display of Instincts, which means they have main deck answers to our Maul, on top of multiple cheap spot removal spells in
Purify and
Torch, and even Hailstorm at times. We often want to get Backlash from the Market early here as backup and either resolve Maul on 8 power, or try to counter their most impactful removal and go to the face
Fx Aggro (Rakano, Skycrag): These matchups often feel unwinnable unfortunately. We're more fragile than their aggressive draws, and they get to pack weapons to beef up their units while we're stuck playing under-statted Wisps. Still, we need a game plan, and I like to trade as aggressively as possible, 1-for-1'ing until we can try to stabilize with a Lunar Magus to block and gain back the life loss from the early turns. Equivocate is our only real removal in this matchup, as we often can't take advantage of the tempo gained with the other two bounce spells.
Feln: Our biggest issues here are Hailstorm and huge Aegis
Champion of Cunning. Otherwise, though, I feel favored here, as our deck is designed to trounce control strategies.
I started with a list by camat0 (which seems to have since been deleted from EWC) and made minor adjustments. Initially, we had 4 Initiate of the Sands, only 2 Darkstalker, and the full 12 bounce spells. I found Initiate to be wholly underwhelming, so I swapped them for Cykalis, which almost fills the same role of being power on the first turn, but has the upside of being your best play after a Hailstorm or Harsh Rule. The glut of bounce spells was also unnecessary from my testing, as I would just run out of gas as my opponent re-played their units I Teleported back to their hand. I'm testing a Read the Stars in the market over a Crystallize, as I found myself running out of ways to trigger Nightfall with draws containing multiple Merchants, and this seems to be the cheapest option that isn't in the main deck.