Adapted Green Feln

Hello, I'm Isochron. You might recognize me from ending last season at the #5 position in masters using the set 3 version of this deck. And if you just want a general overview of how the deck plays instead of a more in-depth description, you should just read the description I wrote for set 3: [Top 10 Masters] Green Feln. I also ended up winning the TGP casual friday tournament. In the first few weeks of the set 4 meta, it quickly became apparent that the deck wasn't as well placed anymore. Sure, TJP midrange used to be a 50/50 matchup, but it always is. The rest of the metagame was pretty easy to beat just because of the high concentration of removal in the previous set. And set 4 did not bring much to the table, only Jennev Merchant and Cull the Deck. (This is unless you count Rindra's Choice, which is not quite good enough to comfortably fit into this shell with the time metagame.) For convenience, the deck tech is split into sections due to being fairly long, if you're not interested in the reasoning behind each choice, you can safely just skip it and read the parts of the deck that you have questions about.

1. The Market

The first important card that I need to go over is Jennev Merchant, this is the all-star of the deck and the biggest change that set 4 brings. First things first, do not put Channel the Tempest into the market. If you merchant for a wincon on turn 8-15 with this deck, you have won anyway and don't need channel. At any other point in the game, it's redundant or a costly removal spell.

Usually, a power in the market is not a strategy I go for, unless there's truly nothing else better to put in the market, or I'm running Auralian Merchant and 6 cost cards (T4 auralian + banner from market + one other power on top or in your hand is a guaranteed 6 power on turn 5). However, Cobalt Waystone is by far the strongest power in the entire game, and the aegis effect can be incredibly useful. It can also fix influence issues.

Vision of Austerity is also a really vital card, in the set 3 list, I ran 2 in the maindeck. And playing set 4 I have been reassured that one in the market is necessary to play the game, but not enough on it's own. JPS loses really bad to relics. Vision of Austerity is by far the best way to remove attachments in JPS, it's a necessary card.

Hailstorm is in the market as a contingency. It allows the deck to have 6 copies of Hailstorm when it needs it, and a slightly worse market when it doesn't. Hailstorm is functionally useless in the FJS and Time matchups. Aggro is still a real threat, but the fact that Kosul Battlemage is one of the best aggro cards greatly reduces how good Hailstorm is. Being able to evade a board wipe once, and then again if another creature is pumped out of Hailstorm range basically blanks Hailstorm.

The market also needs unconditionally solid cards, and the card you will find yourself taking the most is Feeding Time, it's one of the most universally good removal spells. It requires primal influence so it can be gotten from the market, and it deals with Makto the Inquisitor and Dawnwalker. It can also be played on-curve after you play the merchant.

The final card in the market that you will take when looking for a wincon is Black-Sky Harbinger. It can stabilize the board and close out games. However, it's one of the two flex slots in the market. You want to keep Vision of Austerity and either Feeding Time or Hailstorm in the market. But otherwise you have slots for 3 other different cards. The strongest contender among them is Thunderstrike Dragon, which is by far the best card for closing out games. It blocks Icaria, the Liberator and Rizahn, Greatbow Master, alongside any other card with a statline below 6/6. You also get two copies for one card, which is functionally card draw. But it's ultimately too win-more for me. Thunderstrike Dragon has no removal or lifegain associated with it, which means that you need it less of the time.

Another very spicy piece of tech for the market is Scourge of Frosthome, but this is only good if you have 10 power, are in a prolonged control mirror, have no other way to win, and can deal with having a totally useless card in the market in 98% of the games. Sure, it automatically wins that 2%, but it's generally not worth it. Rindra's Choice is not good enough for the mainboard, but it can do things if it's in the market. But the current metagame is not really geared towards the card. Permafrost is strong too, but it cannot deal with as many threats as Feeding Time can. You want to wipe the board multiple times per game, and putting the Permafrosted Dawnwalker or Makto, the Inquisitor into the void is the last thing you want. Furthermore, it's dealt with by silence effects, attachment removal, or endurance. Permafrost is a strong card but it, ironically enough, lacks permanence.

One last piece to consider when it comes to the market is the fact that you can get cards you put into the market back. When you put a Jennev Merchant into the market with a second Jennev Merchant, your third Jennev Merchant can transform any card in the hand to the Jennev Merchant that was put into the market before. But there are cases that come up more. For example, you want to put Channel the Tempest into your market whenever it ends up in your hand in the early-game. You probably don't want it now, but it can drastically improve your game when you can just get it back in the late-game when you need it. And although it's a good rule of thumb that you don't want to spend a market space on Channel the Tempest, it's still one of the best cards to have in the market when you play a game where you expect to play two merchants.

2. Removal

Now that we have discussed the market, we can go look at the actual decklist. The first thing that needs mentioning is the removal package and how it changed between set 3 and set 4. In set 3, I ran 3+4 boardwipes, and 9 pieces of spot removal. In set 4 however, the count has increased to 5+2 boardwipes and 13 pieces of spot removal. People are playing a lot more threats that require answers, so the deck has no choice other than to stock up on these answers. Furthermore, Praxis and Skycraggro are not fixtures of the metagame, so the boardwipe count shifted towards Harsh Rule and End of the Story instead of Hailstorms. And I think that 7 board wipes are somewhat of a sweet spot for this sort of deck. It allows you to always have one if you need it, but doesn't clutter your hand up with high-cost 2 for 1s when you just need cheaper spot removal cards.

The removal package itself evolved from just 3 Feeding Time, 4 Slay, and 2 Eilyn's Choice. The deck itself runs 1 less Feeding Time in the maindeck and 1 more Eilyn's Choice. 4-cost removal is just a bit too slow to rely on, and Eilyn's Choice has many more targets than it used to. It's also a good card against Answer the Call, Moment of Creation and Channel the Tempest. The deck is also running the anti-teacher package of 2 Permafrost and 2 Annihilate. I didn't like Annihilate in the previous metagame, but with Rilgon's Disciple and Time decks being fairly dominant, it has become a really good card.

Permafrost itself is not my favourite, I would rather not play it if given the choice. But sadly Teacher of Humility does not give us that choice. And Permafrost is far from useless in the rest of the game, but Disciplinary Weights brings down the chances of winning from around being favoured 70/30 against the time match-up to being unfavoured somewhere around 20/80. This removal package can be modified depending on the conditions, but should never dip below at least 4 answers for Teacher of Humility, 12 total pieces of spot removal, and 4 real boardwipes. It might even be worth it to run the counter-intuitive In Cold Blood because it can end opponents with Justice wincons, and functions as a Feeding Time against everything that is not Dawnwalker. But it's generally too clunky to be worth running. Suffocate might also be a solid 1-of if the deck is having trouble with Alessi, Combrei Archmage, Teacher of Humility, and Rilgon's Disciple all dying to it. And you might also consider a few of Vara's Favour, but each of them can only be counted as 1/3rd of a removal spell. However, if the power and mulligans become rough, it can be necessary.

3. Card Selection and Card Draw

The other addition from set 4 aside from the merchant is Cull the Deck. This card is a major powerhouse, it's the best card selection spell in the entirety of Eternal. The more I play with this card, the more I feel like it's just really, really good. However, the deck cannot run an infinite amount of card selection. This is why my card selection package consists only of 3 Cull the Deck and 2 Strategize. You're almost guaranteed to draw one of the two in the early-game, which means that the quality of your opening hand will not be determined by the actual opening hand. These cards also make an otherwise solid, but a 2 power hand into a respectable keep.

With Strategize, you have cards according to matchups that you really don't like. In Time matchups, these are Hailstorm and Vision of Austerity, you want these cards to be in the market or on the bottom of your deck eventually. In non-Moment of Creation control matchups, board wipes are generally useless. Eilyn's Choice is not the removal you want when you're against TJP Blitz and the opponent is not threatening a Rilgon's Disciple. It leads to some insane blowouts for your opponent if they play a Rilgon's Disciple or over-commit to Geomar, the Steel Tempest, but folds to the gameplan of slowly beating your face in. Otherwise, it's usually right to bottom powers, excessive removal, and cards that you do not plan getting any tempo or card advantage with.

You also don't really like win conditions, as weird as that might sound. When you're using card selection in the early-game, you need to put win conditions on the bottom of your deck. Even if it leaves you technically unlikely to win with efficient game-enders since you might only have 3 other copies of Channel the Tempest and Sword of the Sky King left in your deck. But you don't win by actually winning. In most cases, once you approach the end-game, you can string together various units and then somehow pull it off. This is not unitless control, so these are not the most important cards in your deck. And finally, when you're holding Sword of the Sky King or Channel the Tempest, and you are at 7 power, you still put the 8th power on the bottom. You will draw another power eventually, you don't need to cast these cards right now. This is unless you need to stabilize or remove a unit immediately. You don't need to rush any games, your deck will win eventually as long as you can suppress the opponent enough.

And finally, Wisdom of the Elders is the best card in the deck. It's just really, really good. You want to draw as many cards as possible and your hand is better the bigger it is.

4. The Units

The unit package has changed drastically between sets 3 and 4. From 3 Jotun Feast-Caller, 3 Throne Warden and 4 Black-Sky Harbinger to 4 Jennev Merchant, 2 of each Jotun Feast-Caller, Throne Warden, and Black-Sky Harbinger. Both lists run 10 units, which I also think is a sweet spot for the deck. It can always apply pressure if it needs to, and all of the units are fine on their own. We can also count the Jennev Merchants as 4.5 units, since you will almost always be getting a Black-Sky Harbinger from your market if you play 2 or more merchants in any single game. And Jennev Merchant is a good unit in it's own right. A 3 power 3/2 with aegis is definitely competitive.

But there are two major reasons for not keeping the higher-cost units at their previous counts. The first and most important one might not be completely obvious, but the deck drastically increased in Harsh Rule count. You don't want your own units to succumb to Harsh Rule, so you don't play as many relevant units. The 50/50 split between Jotun Feast-Caller and Throne Warden is up to each person. But 5 power 4/4s with aegis are really good. Their effects are comparable in their respective matchups. Jotun Feast-Caller wins grindy matchups while Throne Warden wins aggressive matchups. Furthermore, Black-Sky Harbinger loses a lot of it's blowout potential when Grenadin Drone, Assembly Line, and Oni Ronin decks all lose popularity. It can still kill a few units here or there, but it's not as reliable in value as it used to be. And when you need the stabilizing aspect of it, it's better to have one in the market.

5. Wrapping Up

First, my choices when it comes to win-cons are odd. Most people would run an additional Channel the Tempest instead of the second Sword of the Sky King. But going down to a singular sword is a really bad decision. You want to draw one Sword of the Sky King every game. It's one of the best pieces of removal. It's one of the best lifegain cards in the entire game. It's also one of the fastest way to close out a game, usually only requiring three turns and an empty board. Do not underrate Sword of the Sky King, the card is amazing and you always want one. But only running 3 Channel the Tempest is harder to justify. You need more channels than this deck has, but you need everything else more. The best solution I can think of is going to a 76 card deck just to run 1 more channel, but that decision is not easy to make at all and needs significant testing before I can endorse it, you can also just cut one Eilyn's Choice, since that's the closest to a flex slot the deck has.

You never want to remove the mainboard Vision of Austerity, and for the reasons why, I will just quote my set 3 deck description: "Control is notoriously weak to relics, and this single card solves most of that issue.". The choice to run Vision of Austerity still holds up.

Another significant change from the last decklist is the decision to run better influence-fixing over Cobalt Waystone. This is just because Hailstorm is not an automatic reset for the early-game anymore. Furthermore, if more people start playing Channel the Tempest or Svetya, Orene of Kosul decks again, you want to switch back to Cobalt Waystone. But as the metagame stands right now, better fixing is preferable to better effects. And you still have the Cobalt Waystone in the market if it's ever necessary. You might also consider running a singular Lingering Influence instead of Seek Power, but it's just too cute in the majority of the cases and redundant now that the deck runs seats alongside crests.