Intro:
After flailing around for a week post Defiance launch, I finally settled on a brew to go from Diamond III to Masters, and this is it. A 13-3 run got me there, smooth as buttered ratflesh. This deck is partly inspired by the aggressive Combrei lists floating around the ladder, but this Argenport adaptation is way more resilient against removal piles and Harsh Rules. Plus Rat Cage, free 1/1 minions forever, I mean, is there a downside? The deck also tries to heavily abuse the new Black Market mechanic. The Argenport merchant is one of the better ones (behind the absurd double damage Rakano merchant), and you have tons of potential one ofs you would never want to run maindeck. One card not to be underestimated is
Secret Passage, it's a very swingy three mana play, and you can afford to lose basically any minion in this deck, so there's no real downside. It doubles as a sacrifice engine for madness too.
Pillar of Dreams is how we scale against slower midrange and control decks, it makes every block really dangerous for your opponent in the long run. I was inspired by the Argenport version once I realised that playing an
Avigraft with Rat Cage out gives you a rat, and that there are a ton of avenues to get Siraf's Beacon online on turn three in these colours.
Matchups:
You honestly love it if they are playing some slow ass harsh rule deck. You really don't love it if they are playing Feln. Deck plays very well against Skycraggro and can race against Face Combrei with better longevity. Madness / Devour is filthy against Time and Dragon Decks. Moment of Creation has to make a million really inefficient plays against you.
Best Matchup: Moment of Creation lolwhat?
Worst Matchup: Feln, mainly because
Black-Sky Harbinger is really efficient, and they have gone back to running 4 Hailstorm main. 8 Wraths is hard to play from under even with revenge units and tons of rats, and you struggle against aegis.
Flex slots: Those annihilates have been numerous other things in testing, including
Vara, Vengeance-Seeker, a pair of
Inquisitor Maktos, and that empowering direbeast thing (which sucks). I might change them over to
Auric Runehammer in order to proc yet more of my pretty pretty rats....
Anyways, I hope you enjoy it, I certainly am.