After reaching Masters each season, I usually post the deck I used to get me in, and occasionally an additional deck that got me into the higher ranks. It's been quite a while since I made one of these deck posts, and since I have been enjoying this deck quite a bit, I decided to make a write up for it.
It is a "newer" version of the
eccentric officer OTK combo deck, that combined Kairos and First Flame to do massive amounts of damage in one turn. A deck that holds a special place in my heart, since it got me qualified for the Worlds Tournament coming up this February. I would certainly not bring the new version to a serious tournament, but it's good enough to currently have me placed at Rank 19.
The link above has a fair bit of info on how the combo functions and the concepts behind the deck design as a whole. Since a fair number of important cards have been nerfed from that original version, there needed to be some different considerations made to take full advantage of the Officer potential. The deck likely has a fair bit of room for adjustments and improvements, but is at a good place with the current list, with turns flowing well and good consistency. It's a bit slower (~1 turn average), and much less resilient to hate.
Edit:
Made a few changes to the deck. Notable addition being the Warning Shot. I'm not sure why I didn't consider it right away. It has a few very favorable interactions that have been working great so far.
- 0 drop Kairos and First Flames are good
- An 11 drop warning shot is still a power
- If you've already played a Spiny Grenadin, warning shot will generate a power by pinging your own unit. (I was surprised how often this comes up) and also can trigger tribute for 0
I also realize that some of the differences between the old officer deck and this one are not the most intuitive. While resilience to hate has gone down substantially in this version, there are some benefits over the previous too.
- You can cast kairos in this version relatively easily
- You can play around spell counters, due to press-gang in the market
- This version produces much better blockers, and due to that has a much better game against aggressive decks.
Deck also made it to Rank 10
I will be adjusting the list as I change it so you all can follow along.
Post a comment if you have a question and I would be happy to answer it.
Warning Shot
x2
1
Crack the Earth
x4
1
Creation Chant
x4
1
Excavate
x3
1
Seek Power
x2
1
Spiny Grenadin
x4
1
Torch
x4
2
Blazing Salvo
x4
2
Powercell
x4
3
Ixtun Merchant
x4
3
Pearl Abbey Smuggler
x3
3
Red Canyon Smuggler
x4
9
Kairos, Grand Champion
x4
11
First Flame
x4
Fire Sigil
x3
Justice Sigil
x1
Time Sigil
x3
Crest of Impulse
x2
Praxis Painting
x4
Praxis Vow
x4
Seat of Glory
x4
Seat of Impulse
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
Twitch stream here
TNE Invitational semi's here and finals here
Quickly talking about the specific lines that would allow you to play around sweepers and around not having any units in play, but still being able to play everything out in one turn:
Certainly the simple way of comboing would be to reweave or cast a kairos on one turn, then next turn play First Flame. That's not always possible. Almost all the lines that win in one turn outright involve Rujin's Choice and Reweave.
With any two units in play, you can rujin's choice to put a first flame on top of your deck, then reweave any of your units for a kairos, which draws you at least one card, and you play the first flame for lethal. This costs a total of 5 power most commonly with a 1 cost first flame, 4 with a 0 cost and 6 with 2 cost.
Particularly against aggressive decks, but also against control, you can also use this line: With the same two starting cards, but no units in play, Rujin's choice at the end of the turn for a First flame. On your turn, play first flame, reweave the token that it makes into kairos, that draws you 8 cards. Any unit or face damage spell then starts the chain. This play costs 2-4 power to get started, so you should have plenty of power to cast a unit or spell on the same turn.
Then there are some other lines that you can work with against Sweeper decks, because they are slow. You can utilize Press gang first, then get a merchant from it for a reweave on the press gang, or just to grind them out, if you know you have multiple 1 cost kairos in the deck.
Currently working on some versions of the deck that try to be significantly stronger against the hand interaction, but I would imagine there will be some detrimental effect against the aggressive matchup.
Κάποια στιγμή να βρεθούμε και ingame να παίξουμε καμμιά παρτίδα!