Vara's Merchants (FJS Singleton Event)

I really thought everyone would be doing this - pick the strongest card to be your hero (Vara), search for "kill" and pick some removal, then filter by legendary/rare and pick every unit that sees play and doesn't have horrible influence requirements. Top it off with torch and torch wannabes, a couple pledge units and power in the market because hitting 4SS is vital and you're set.

I did my leaderboard runs on the first day of the event and went 21-1. I don't think this deck is that strong, a lot of my games felt like I was just beating up on people with smaller collections (eg Oni Eulogist being played).

Here's some of my thoughts on deck building for the event:
- There are a lot of good cards in the game. If you find yourself putting bad cards into your deck because they fit your strategy you may want to rethink your strategy.
- Similarly if you choose a hero that doesn't see play you should have a really good reason for it (I'm looking at you Bartholo, the Seducer, Chains isn't worth paying 21 power).
- Pulling a unit out of thin air counts as starting the game with an extra card and if you're summoning it on turn 2 instead of playing a unit your hand now has 2 more cards than normal. This makes playing a power card each turn much more important and incentivizes mulliganing for power heavy hands. I would prefer to run fewer depleted sources as well but this deck has heavy influence requirements and your access to seek power is limited.
- Discovering a buff for your hero when you call it makes being able to replay your hero stronger, whether that's returning it from the void or copying it Mirror Image style. The format also limits the number of silence and transform effects that are played (no 4x Maiden or Equivocate) making it much less likely to get disrupted. Note: the "Hero's Entomb: Draw a Card" seems to be bugged: the second time I played the same Vara it gave 2 cards and the third time it gave 3.
- Playing aggressive decks with no card draw and the hero as the top end seemed to be a popular strategy. I recommend including a reliable strategy to prevent from getting run over by decks with mediocre cheap units and little hard removal, such as playing an overpowered lifesteal unit on 4 and being able to harsh rule if things get out of hand.
- Martyr's Chains is a good card.


After looking at some other lists I definitely think Ripknife Assassin justifies a position in this deck.