Skychase Zone

April 2023 Expedition Top 20

Update 2023-05-03: I discovered that Skywing, Flying Free can't be played by Give Chase if one of them is the only unit in the top five cards after I played Give Chase, found 0 units, and my opponent discarded the top 3 cards of my deck, which included 1 Skywing.

I created this deck from the remnants of last Expedition's Chase/Phoenix Aggro deck to test if Skywing, Flying Free could be played from Give Chase. I do not yet know the answer to that question, but the deck's units are difficult to block and end the game quickly. It's not difficult to play Skywing regardless because Ascetic Lantern returns itself to hand to be played again and Rickety Ramcart plays a unit when it attacks.

The deck's influence requirements are FFJJ, and it can typically hit those by turn 3 with one of the 8 two influence power cards and turn 4 with Star Charts. The order of influence gain for this deck is completely dependent on cards in-hand, but try to have JJ before playing Champion of Glory to prevent tempo loss to a card like Vara's Favor.

The unit selection is fairly standard with the new additions of Glorious Mistral to grant smaller units evasion and Dazzling Hazebender to prevent the opponent from effectively blocking. Riot Detail functions both as removal on key opposing units and as interference for your attacking units. Pyroknight and Glorious Mistral are effective ways to spend power when it is too risky to play more cards onto the board. Chizue, Silver Hilt's Summoned weapon is best played on a 3 attack unit to break through 4 health blockers, and remember to track your current equipped unit count for Bladesmash.

Ossuar Longbow is effective at removing or punishing blockers and grants Ignite and Bladesmash Overwhelm. Speaking of Ignite, it is almost fast Torch and removes 1-3 health blockers on the opponent's turn and it and Finest Hour can be paired with Quickdraw and Overwhelm against 4-6 health units on the player's turn. Finally, Give Chase fills two roles for this deck by playing Charge units to win games from neutral to losing board positions and refilling the player's hand with units for the turns afterwards.

I did not build a Market for this deck and I played it to high ranks without one. The deck has 8 1-cost cards and 12 2-cost cards to play early and playing Deliveries conflicts with those cards. My suggestion on a Market would be to replace Give Chase with Caravan Delivery or Warren Delivery and put Give Chase in the Market along with 4 other low-cost specific answers to other common decks. The downside is that removing Give Chase from the deck means that an early Delivery must place in it in the top 5 cards and leaves it vulnerable to opposing interaction like Hunt. Additionally, the deck typically doesn't win from a defensive position, meaning that drawing answers is less useful overall than drawing more threats.