Good day everyone! It’s stormguard798, back with another deck tech and tournament report following my run during Friday’s Tuesday Night Eternal (TNE) Tournament. Following the arrival of the Buried Memories mini-set, there has been a massive shake-up to the Expedition meta, with decks like Tradition Soldiers alongside Creation Sentinels rising to the top. Whilst I could have brought 1 of those 2 decks with me, in testing I felt that the mirrors were honestly quite boring and draw dependent, and nothing I found helped break that stalemate one often encountered besides just drawing slightly better. Let’s be honest here, drawing unbelievably well is not too far-fetched considering my deep investment with the luck-sack, but I was hoping to better my odds a little. So what deck did I end up going with?
Decklist:
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/R37Q644avbs/tej-s-signature-xenan
(BTW, the line ‘TEJ’s Signature Xenan’ is an off-hand remark from Ashe on the Eternal Journey Podcast’s Set Review of Buried Memories – go check it out and all the other episodes. It’s good. Or so I’ve been told. XD)
Ok, so before everyone starts flaming me for picking yet another Xenan deck, I’m going to lay out my logic. I think Moonstone Vanguard right now is one of the strongest units you can play: it puts you far ahead when you can ramp it out and it has Endurance, so you know it’s not going to get halted by a Permafrost. Also, I consider Logistics Expert to be one of the biggest sleeper/not-sleeper cards of the set, and it just does everything you’re looking for in a time-based deck. When we were considering how to effectively combat decks that were pumping out massive units for cheap with frightening consistency, the answer was clear: Desert Alchemist. It smoothes your draws, but it’s also a cheap deadly ambush unit – it doesn’t matter how big the opposing threat is. This build I feel is an incredibly adaptive deck that has a bunch of different option depending on your draw, but can also turn the corner at any moment. Here’s why I picked the cards that I did.
Inclusions:
- Edict of Makkar – Let’s get it out of the way, to begin with. I personally don’t think it’s a sign of a healthy format when I feel like I can main-deck this type of effect and get away with it in most situations – and the disappointing thing is that I was not the only person to do so. Having said that, the two most played decks in the format are chock full of both Time and Justice units, and being able to answer them for just 1 power, no matter their size, is just unbelievably efficient. If a bunch more people suddenly pick up Grenadins or Feln Purveyor then I might swap back to Suffocate, but for now, I think it more than warrants main deck inclusion.
- Trail Maker – So if you’ve read my previous article you know how much I adore Logistics Expert, so it should come as no surprise to anybody that I’m including it in my deck. The question then becomes do I also want to include Trail Maker. There’s been some internal discussion as to whether it is worth it to run both – because too many, and you risk getting completely blown out of the water by KTE. Or Autotread. Or Grenadins apparently. -_- That being said, whilst there is a very obvious downside of being destroyed, the upside of dropping a T3 Vanguard is just a little too juicy to pass up. Whilst there has been some divergence as to whether Expert or Maker is the better power dork, I think in this deck they are both worthwhile inclusions. Even though the additional influence was more crucial back when we had Ubsat in the deck, it’s still helpful to accumulate for both Alhed and Twinned Spiteling, and honestly, in a format that a lot about being fast and rolling high, I think it’s fine to include both power dorks here.
- Steward of the Past – Let’s be honest: this is probably one of my more bizarre inclusions, coming out of both left and right field as a suggestion from Ip. Previously, I had Rhuus in this slot for some targeted void hate; yes, Vulk, we all know you’re a giant problem. However, there was some concern about curve as that may put too many units in the 5 drop slot. As a result, Ip proposed moving the Steward from the market into the maindeck and putting in an all-together different market option, which is what we ended upon. Although it is double Shadow, which means the odds of us being able to power out either 4 drop in our deck on T3 is low, it still is some semblance of void hate. Even though it doesn’t stop the first recursion, at least it stops Vulk from getting too out of hand. Despite getting slapped by Permafrost, the 5 health coupled with the deadly is surprisingly tricky to deal with in combat; it generally results in a trade even if I am a little bit down in power. More widespread void hate also helps to minimise the power of any Know When to Hold ‘Em/Krull shanhooligans should I happen to see them.
- 26 power – Always include the fun 1 of Standard for surprises in open decklists; it forces your opponent to play around it even though you only have 1 copy. What joy. (I’m not going to lie, there was far too much temptation to shove in a Cabal Standard as well, but I think I’d rather have 4 of Symbol for influence reasons. Not sure how I’ll feel about that on Tuesday/Wednesday though. XD) Although I do have a bunch of cheap units and spells, I also have plenty of top-end and use my power late into the game, hence I’m comfortable playing 26 power. Maybe 27 power is correct, but again, math. Is really hard for me. 😛
Exclusions:
- Any kind of auxiliary power (Seek Power, Etchings) – Originally, I was a base time deck with a Time market, which is why it made sense to run Time Etchings; however, now that I’m running a Shadow market (more on that in a hot second) it doesn’t make sense to run Etchings since I have much fewer Shadow units, so that’s out of the picture. Ultimately, I haven’t been terribly impressed by Seek Power since fiddling around with it, it still doesn’t really solve my influence issues by running Shadow Sigils and having Seek to find them, so I’d rather just rely on my power dorks alongside 8 Plunder cards – although it’s a lot more fragile, it’s been panning out OK for me thus far.
- Ubsat, the Savior – So most Xenan Midrange lists that I’ve seen floating around on ladder, and although we played around with it for a bit, it ultimately cooled on us. Here’s why: Expedition influence is rough enough as it is, and we are playing a certain number of pure Shadow sources, which makes it hard to play Ubsat early. Next, because we’re playing auxiliary ramp with dorks, even if we do get to 4 power early, it’s still not guaranteed we’ll get to play the Ubsat. Although in practice it sounds fantastic in stomping an assortment of monofaction threats from Merchants, to Argo Ironthorn, to opposing Vanguards, in reality, it was often Turn 5 or 6 before we could unearth enough Time influence to play Ubsat, and most opponents’ hands tend to be emptied by then. With the injection of dominant multifaction threats such as Hifos and Vulk, I just don’t feel like Ubsat hits with the level of consistency I’m looking for.
- Onoris Roa – Is it strange that after it got buffed, I started playing Onoris Roa less? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. On paper, it seems perfectly fine – a solid overwhelm body, text with some additional utility, and a decent late-game amplify. In practice…not so much. Pretty much every time I’ve included this card I’ve been rather underwhelmed; it’s an asymmetrical monofaction unit, which means it gets plucked off by a lot of removal, and not having a summon effect rather stings. You’re also not thrilled to ramp into this because it doesn’t let you steamroll if unchecked like many other threats. Maybe someone else can unearth the build where Onoris is potent, but for now I’ll keep being underwhelmed.
- Swirl the Sands – So last time we played Xenan as a collective in Expedition, we chose to run Swirl the Sands maindeck, having been bodied by relic weapons and flying Valkyries the TNE just before. However, Valkyries have been heavily pushed out by just stronger Tribal decks (sorry Dichro, but you did NOT help your tribe) and most of the relic weapons have gone with them. Whilst there are still some fliers (looking at you, Hifos) and some relics (looking at you, Vulk), they are a lot more manageable by the rest of the removal in the deck, hence eschewing the more situational spell from my deck.
Market:
- Vine Grafter – The glaringly obvious advantage to running Grafters is that you have the option of running the Speaking Circle in the market. However, given the recent nerf to Speaking Circle coupled with the fact that I’m expecting a lot of aggressive decks, relying on the Speaking Circle to stabilise isn’t necessarily viable, especially with its wild agenda. On top of that, now ramping out the Speaking Circle might not be such a good thing, since it’s now the first circle that’s at a disadvantage. That levels out the playing field a lot for me. Now, which faction: Time or Shadow? I previously went with the Time market for one reason: cleaner relic removal. That is it. Now that I don’t feel aside from Vulk’s Heart there are many multifaction relics that I’m expecting, I, therefore don’t feel that a Time market is necessary, and am leaning towards Shadow for its more versatile disruption options. Auralian Merchant is pretty powerful in serving as yet another power dork to power out the fabled T3 Vanguard, but for me, the allure of the Shadow market is just a little too strong. So now it’s a pick between Vine Grafter and Kerendon Merchant, and whilst having Deadly on Kerendon Merchant is particularly potent in playing defensive, I ultimately felt that the ability to give one of my massive Time units regen outweighed the tempo advantage of paying 3 VS paying 5 for my market access. A 6/6 Endurance Regen unit in the form of a buffed Vanguard is truly stuff out of most aggro decks’ nightmares. I do think that all 4 market access units are defensible 1 way or another, however, but this is the one I felt would pan out the best. 🙂
- Suffocate – Now that I’ve shoe-horned Edict of Makkar into the main-deck, I’ve elected to pick up Suffocate as my cheap market removal spell – sometimes you just need a few more ways to pick off that pesky Wump and Mizo or Jarrall. That being said, with Mandrakes being mostly out of the picture now, there are fewer targets for Suffocate, which is why I feel it’s fine as a market card.
- Nectar of Unlife – I previously had this as a 1 of in the main in a lot of my decks, but given that I was looking for some kind of void drawing effect in the market, this fit the bill perfectly. Yes, it’s both an inefficient removal spell and an inefficient void draw spell, but the versatility of being able to do a bit of both I think warrants its inclusion in some way in the deck. (Also, it’s a great way to deal with Tower – turns out that site is still fantastic.) Also, the feeling of the light in your opponent’s eyes fading when you play this for 11 is wild.
- Express Route – The classic catch-all removal spell that gets around void recursion by sending it straight back into your deck. Particularly good against Vulk, but honestly just a necessary back-stop in case something goes horribly wrong.
- Slimespitter Slug – Unfortunately, Valks aren’t super dominant in the meta anymore, so I’m not getting as much use out of the flying hoser as I’d like; it still hits Hifos and Winchest Merchant, which is solid. Having said that, it’s still a massive unit that I can fetch from my market in a pinch, and don’t underestimate the value of a giant honker that just sits there and gets bigger. Just look at the Prackalackin VS camomilk game from TNE 7.
- Moldermuck – Ok, so I was super indecisive on what my last slot should be, and even looking back I’m not entirely sure I made the right choice. I considered packing Reappropriator as probably the best piece of relic interaction against Sentinels, but that deck probably pack both Flash Fry and Smite, which means it’s going right back to them anyways. There was some discussion of putting in Krull, but I personally feel that Krull makes way more sense with Merchant or Smugglers because you have a little more autonomy over when you pull – rarely do you play and activate Grafter in the same turn and still have enough excess power to pull a meaningful threat back from the void, so since I’m sticking with Grafter, I didn’t think Krull was a good enough option. In the previous iteration of Xenan, our team packed a couple of Pull from Nightmares main which we then tried relegating to the market. However, there were quite a few games where I didn’t end up finding triple Shadow influence, so it felt a little too risky. As a result, in the end I went with Moldermuck, just as a way to completely gum up the board against a deck like Grenadins or Mono Fire, just constantly spitting out more bodies. I didn’t end up pulling it all during the tournament, so that may not have been the right move. You win some, you lose some. XD
Gameplay!
(I would just like to keep in mind that I have not watched any of the commentary from Telemokos and Ip, in part because I want my perspective to be completely impartial and purely based on what I was thinking, and also in part because I’m honestly a little terrified by how much Ip flamed me – that man does not hold back. {Just kidding – it’s mostly because I’m too busy being distracted binging Big Brother Canada before the new season starts.} In any case, if you’d like to see the VODs and their perspective on my matches – I had the feature match Matches 1 and 4 – you can do so below.)
Match 1: (VS Prackalackin)
Oh dear god, if there was a match-up I did not want to see, at all, it may just be this. It’s a deck filled with ping effects to just mow down my power dorks, and since they’re not fighting much on the axis of combat, there’s a pretty good chance that I just can’t kill them fast enough before they plop Align. Since they’re killing all of my ramp, I’ll only ever be able to drop my threats on curve (probably). I only have 1 way to deal with a Tesseract Prime, period, so whilst I may be able to weather the 1st one, I probably won’t be able to deal with the 2nd one. Or 3rd. Oh gosh. Also, they’re in all the factions that Edict of Makkar does not cover, so that’s a completely dead card in this matchup. There aren’t too many so-called ‘good’ targets for my removal spells, I’m just going to try and fire them off as aggressively as I can just to make sure Prack doesn’t build out too much of a board that makes it easy for him to go for a surprise Align. Probably not winning this one, but here’s to hoping. :fingerscrossed:
Game 1:
I end up keeping an opening hand with a Cylix, a Time Sigil, an Edict, an Expert, an Alhed, an SAA, and an Alchemist. Although I don’t have any top-end in my hand, Alhed is not a bad wall for all of the tiny units out of Grenadins, and even though Edict is a dead card, I have a way to plunder it away in hand. The question is whether I open with T1 Expert, or instead lead with the Cylix and guarantee my T2 Alhed. I end up leading with Expert because it has a higher upside, but in hindsight, considering how much cheap pinging they have, it would have probably made much more sense to just go with the safer T2 Alhed. It turns out it was an Overgrowth instead, but the point still stands. I play my depleted Cylix, and just pass back to a pair of Sparking Vermins. How horrifying.
On my turn, having drawn 2 Vanguards on not Turn 1 (thanks Pledge), I plunder away one of my Edicts into a Sigil just to hit my power drops with the plan to just block a Sparking Vermin the next turn. They are getting to the point where they could just go for a 1 drop Grenadin into Tesseract, so I need to start keeping their board as clear as possible. They end up picking it off with Razorblades and making a 1/1 deadly, which stonewalls the 2 Vanguards in hand. I topdeck an Alchemist, immediately plunder away my other Edict, and go for SAA on the Razorbot – got to keep them off Align where possible, and try to go for the exact same play as last turn.
On their turn, they just play a Gleaming Grenadin and pass without attacking, which screams to me ‘I am setting up for Align’ since they do have 3 open power and the requisite influence. I go for the cheeky 2 damage with Alchemist because I’m pretty sure they have Realign the Stars, and plan on Aligning the next turn. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about it in hand having drawn another uncastable chonker, so I just drop the Alhed and cross my fingers. Predictably, they have it and proceed to Align my next turn. I scoop right here as they have 2 Snipes from the Sparking Vermins to completely refill their hand, and I have zero way of dealing with the Tesseract Prime at least for a few more turns.
Game 2:
I keep my opening hand with a Symbol, 2 Seats, a Time Sigil, a Spiteling, an Exploit, and an Expert. Learning nothing from last game, obviously, (I’m on the play, so I got greedy), I open with a Turn 1 Expert to go for the unbelievably greedy T3 Spiteling. Fortunately, they don’t have an immediate ping, just a Gleaming Grenadin, so next turn I play my Time Symbol and slap down an Exploit – I see 2 Sparking Vermin, a Downdark Scavenger, a Realign and a Wisdom, which is honestly kind of lackluster of a hand, and that also indicates to me that they only have 1 more power in hand. Regardless, I snap off the Realign, because I feel that is the least replaceable card they have, and they can’t play Wisdom right now anyways. I plunder away my Time Sigil, which is definitely very greedy, but…have you seen my plays this game?
They go depleted power into topdeck Condemn for my Expert, which is simply wonderful. XD They probably go for either Edict or Permafrost out of the market here is my guess. I topdeck a Time Symbol, which I’m comfortable with playing here and just going for the Trove into a Seat. They play out their pair of Sparking Vermins into a 3rd power – wow, look at this lucksack. (I really can’t criticise) I play my Twinned Spiteling knowing the Timekeeper is probably going to get removed in some way – I did draw a 2nd Logistics Expert as a back-up threat which is nice, however. They have the Edict as expected, and when they attack, I block a Sparking Vermin with my Spiteling, because it’s going to get Snipe’d down at some point anyway, and I want to reduce their unit count for an out-of-the-Primal Align.
They drop their Scrounger, and snack their Gleaming Grenadin to get back Condemn – here I play out an Amplified Logistics Expert and this is probably a punt – I know they’re most likely going to go Condemn into Permafrost, so I should have probably run out Steward here as bait first, and that is…exactly what they do. I drop an SAA on the Scavenger, and then drop my Steward – they probably just have the Wisdom in hand, and I would strongly prefer my Steward to stick around. Of course, I’m entirely wrong as they go Sigil into Razorblades, which is honestly not particularly threatening. Here, I punt by playing the Vanguard out pre-combat – since I’m trying to make it seem as if I’m awful (which is honestly not that hard), I’m trying to bait Prack to block the Steward with the Razorbot, and not having a much better threat to block down the line probably incentivizes them to do so more.
Of course, it doesn’t end up mattering because I go and topdeck another Vanguard, and also topdeck a SAA off the first Vanguard draw to pick off the Razorbot that blocks it, and I’m fortunately very much turning the corner here with my pair of Vanguards. They play power and pass, and the fantastic topdecks keep coming with a Curtain Call and Alhed off my Vanguard draws – they take 13, and at this point, even if they get Align, I should still be able to close things out. I end up running out the Expert instead of holding up Curtain Call cause there’s nothing in their deck that can threaten my board anyways. They draw, and scoop it up.
Game 3:
I keep an opening hand with Trail Maker, Logistics Expert, SAA, 3 Sigils, and a Symbol. Going for the excessively greedy line, I open with a T1 Expert, hoping they do not have a Condemn. If you were rational and learned from previous games, you’d probably wait and just open with Time Symbol into Trail Maker, so you can still amplify Expert if need be, which is just assuaged when I draw my 4th Time Sigil. I play my Trail Maker, they play a Seek Power, and I regret all of my life choices when I draw my 2nd SAA. They grab a Razorblades to pluck off my Trail Maker, and I draw a Touvon I can’t play. Joy. XD They Vicious Overgrowth my Expert, which just sets back my Touvon even more. XD I play a Trail Maker and drop my 5th Sigil – please live. Please live. It dies on the end of my turn to a Flash Fry, and honestly I deserve this for my sloppy play. XD
They just attack with the Vermin and pass without even playing power, which is unbelievably suspicious – probably a Wisdom or a Realign. I topdeck an Expert and amplify it to hopefully start applying some pressure. They go for the Realign, and are probably just 1 or 2 Grenadins off from just wrecking me. They Razorblades my face just for the Razorbot, which tells me that they probably have another 1 cost Grenadin in hand coupled with Align, which means as much I would like to go for the Touvon here, I think I need to SAA the Razorbot and pass. They go for a slow speed Wisdom on their turn and play out a power before trying to poke in for 1 with Vermin – I try to go for the ambush block with Alchemist, but unfortunately, they have the Condemn to pick it off, and probably went looking for the Edict. I clock in for 4 with my Expert, and they play out a Scraptank on their turn and then drop their Align for 0. Joy. And then they Edict my Expert.
I plop the Touvon in at the end of turn hoping to draw into a Vine Grafter or if not that, a power to plop down Alchemist. I draw a fairly unhelpful SAA, and pass it back to them. They have a Sparking Vermin, sac it with Scrounger to Snipe and draw 2 cards, buyback Condemn, and frosting over my Touvon. Oh boy. They crack in for 12, and I’m in unsurprisingly awful shape. I draw an uncastable Touvon, and SAA that Scrounger immediately – I’d prefer not to die to pings, thank you very much. It doesn’t end up making a difference as they have Overgrowth into a Gleaming Grenadin, and I scoop it up. Not an archetype I was expecting going into this tournament at all, and Prack capitalised well on the punt that they didn’t even know I made. XD
Match 2: (VS wsgRon)
I had planned this deck for a perhaps slightly slower build of Creation Sentinels, but I still think the deck will fare just fine against a more aggressive deck – we had a strong match-up against Mono Fire even with the main deck Edicts, and the Edicts should be able to clean up any of their cheap threats hat we can’t hit with SAA. I am a little concerned about them drawing multiple Vulks cause we don’t have clean 1 for 1 removal to deal with them unlike Flash Fry out of Fire decks. On top of that, with the Vulks having Overwhelm, the plan to just block them with Deadly Units isn’t quite as clean. That being said, I don’t think this match-up will be nearly as difficult as the previous one.
Game 1:
I mulligan my opening hand which only had 1 power; although it had Vanguard to pledge on Turn 1 and Expert + Exploit to Plunder, it just felt a little too dicey if they did manage to remove Expert with Salvo, especially since I am on the draw. I end up keeping my 2nd 7 of 2 Alchemists, an Exploit, an Edict, an SAA, a Sigil and a Xenan Cylix. Plenty of plunder to sculpt my hand as need be, and plenty of removal to deal with early game pressure from their side. Now let’s find a threat. After both playing power and passing on Turn 1, they open with a Flameheart Patroller whilst I opt for an Exploit to hopefully snipe a Vulk before it drops – I do get one, but they have 2 copies total, alongside a Relay Point, a Controlled Demolition, and a Blazing Salvo. Fortunately, they don’t have any power in hand, so depending on their draws, I shouldn’t be under too much pressure. I end up plundering away 1 of 2 Alheds instead of 1 of 2 Alchemists, which is a punt – considering they have both Salvo and Demolition in hand, Alchemist isn’t going to be particularly helpful in ambushing a big threat anyways. Unfortunately for me, they do topdeck a Combrei Vow and proceed to drop a Vulk. On my turn, I have the Edict in hand, which I’m quick to fire off, and plop down an Alhed to force the Demolition out of them next turn should they want to get through – I’d much rather use their Demolition to save their Patroller then have a recursive Double Damage Vulk to deal with down the road.
They do however topdeck a 3rd Vulk, and I’m positive fuming right now – at least they don’t have another power to get in with the Patroller this turn. Small victories. I play a Shadow Symbol and simply pass before they get in with Vulk – I decide to block here, and here’s why – if they don’t use their trick, we trade and that’s just swell. They probably sacrifice one Heart to another and that buys me a little time. If they do use the trick, then they don’t have it down the line for my Alchemists. I’m taking a decent chunk of damage regardless, but I’m still at 20 life and I think I can afford to do so right now. They decide to Relay Point instead, holding up the Salvo, but I run out my 1st Alchemist anyway and plunder Alhed to guarantee my next power drop – which is perfect, because I topdeck a Vanguard. Granted, it’s going to die to Slag, but small victories. One step at a time. Here, I wanted to keep the Alchemist for Vulk and SAA to blow them out in case they went for Demolition on Patroller to apply some pressure, which is not outside of the realm of possibility. I move to attack with Alchemist, and they understandably Salvo it.
They go for the Slag on Vanguard, play a Vow, and attack in for 5. I drew a Symbol and simply choose to pass: if they go for the attack here, I can ambush in Alchemist; if they go for Demolition (they have 1 card in hand, and I’d be surprised if they’d marketed it, because the card SLAPS), then I can blow them out with SAA on top of keeping the Alchemist. They play a Painting and attack with both units; I ambush in the Alchemist, plunder the Symbol, and block; being a competent player, they do not blow their trick here, and the 2 units trade. They then sacrifice their Relay Point to bring back Vulk, and I at present don’t have a good way of dealing with it.
I draw an Alchemist, draw with Trove, and decide to play the Grafter here – they’d have to topdeck a Flash Fry to get past it; otherwise, I should be able to buy myself a turn here since Demolitioning the Vulk doesn’t do anything. They don’t Fry up my plant, and I only get poked for 2. Next turn, I use the Grafter to get market access and give Alchemist Regen, which is about to be a complete blowout if they don’t have some fast speed removal for it. On their turn, they open with a Temple Raider and attack with everything. My Regen Alchemist leaps in and block Vulk, forcing the Demolition out of their hand to save it; I take 4 from Raider, but on my turn, I Express Route the Double Damage Vulk from the board.
Granted, I’m still at a very precarious life total, but if I can get the block with Alchemist on the Raider I think I might have a shot here. On their turn, they just draw and pass; I topdeck an Exploit and fire, taking the only legal target Autotread, before deploying my Trail Maker. I think there’s definitely an argument for going for the SAA on the Raider and try to turn the corner, or simply Plundering away the Trail Maker for actual power. I’d much rather save the SAA for the Phoenix Stones that I know they have in their deck, but I probably should have just Plundered the Trail Maker since there’s a good chance it just gets removed.
They draw and pass; I draw, play my Symbol and ship it straight back. Oh dear. They play a Vow and pass, and when it gets back round to my turn, I see that they are just bricking hard, so I decide to turn the corner and be a little more aggressive, using the SAA on the Raider and getting in for 5. Missed a whole turn’s worth of damage by not going for it earlier, but…sunk cost fallacy, you know? They draw and pass again, whereas I draw a Curtain Call and am positively thrilled. I attack again for 5, and on their turn, they plop an unallied Temple Raider; I play my Time Symbol after drawing a Shadow one – no point in holding too much power in hand when this deck has plenty of ways to use it. And even though they elect not to block, I fire off the Curtain Call to put them to 1 and just a horrible spot moving into the next turn. Now that I have a decent life buffer, I shouldn’t be dead to any strange surprises. They play out their 3rd Raider, but I Destiny Call off the top, and that’s game. Definitely got unbelievably lucky there with Ron bricking for 5 turns, but it happens sometimes. 😛
Game 2:
I mulligan my 1st 7 since it had 1 power and no pledge; my second 7 is 4 Time Sigils, an Edict, a SAA, and Touvon. Even though I’m on the draw, this hand is just way too dicey against a fast aggro, so it’s a very obvious 6 for me. My 6 contains a Shadow Symbol, a Seat, a Time Sigil, a Curtain Call, a Steward, and an Edict. Not tragic, honestly. I open with a T1 Symbol whilst they go for Phoenix Stone. Oh no. I play a Seat, pass, and they have a Patroller. I topdeck an Alhed and play that alongside a Sigil – where are the Combrei Units for my Edict? XD They play a Vow, buff the Patroller, and I opt to take the trade here: even on a mull to 6, I have the stronger late-game, so I’d rather trade off early. No tricks occur, and they play out a Fort Smasher post-combat. Now, even though I have the option of Edict-ing here, I play out the Twinned Spiteling I drew instead – no need to remove it just yet when I can simply block.
On their turn, they drop an allied Temple Raider which I block with the Spiteling half of the Duo, and there are no Salvos to be found. On my turn, after drawing an Alchemist, I decide to just Edict the Fort Smasher and get in – considering that Timekeeper is a symmetrical unit, if I can get this Timekeeper to grow it’ll be rather tricky for them to deal with it, so I’d prefer not to trade it off here. On their turn, they play a Vulk, and I decide not to Alchemist at the end of their turn – with 2 Shadow Cards in hand, I won’t be able to get a Time Sigil anyways. On my turn, I attack with the Timekeeper as I’m down for a trade here; they elect not too, and I follow it up with Steward post-combat.
They attack with Vulk; since with the Curtain Call in hand I should be winning this race, I elect to just take the 5 so that I can still get in with my units. Post combat, they drop a 2nd Vulk, which may be rather problematic. I draw a Cylix, and since I now have enough power and Time influence for Alchemist + Call, I’m down for attacking; there’s something to be said of holding a unit back, but I think that telegraphs my Curtain Call in hand far too obviously. Although I don’t gain quite as much life, I still think this is a very worthwhile tempo trade. Even better, after declaring blocks, they opt to try and Salvo the Alchemist, which means I get to completely blow them out with the Call. They pass without activating the 1st Vulk’s Heart, which tells me they probably took Smite and are planning to remove one of my units on attacks.
I draw a Cylix and play it before attacking with everything; they block Timekeeper with Vulk, and Smite the Steward; I follow up post-combat to Steward both Vulks in their void and draw with Trove. I find a Vine Grafter, which I plan to use next turn to get me a Regen Slimespitter Slug – now that Smite is out of the picture, it’s going to be unbelievably tricky for them to deal with Slug. They use a Heart to buyback a Silenced Vulk, and because they’re so low, on my turn they have to block one of my units for fear of a 2nd Curtain Call; I don’t have it, but Steward trading with Vulk isn’t that tragic either. Following combat, I went for the Grafter play as expected, and pass it back.
On their turn, they play a pair of Relay Points, probably hoping to block whilst dropping a relic to activate Heart with on their next turn, but unfortunately I Destiny the Curtain Call into an Edict for exactsies. A very strong draw from me following a mull to 6 coupled with some later Vulks out of my opponent’s side led to my pretty decisive victory there, but it could have definitely gone south if they’d been able to loop some Vulks in between my Stewards.
Match 3: (VS AsheAcer)
This is a match-up of ‘Can I kill all of their fliers??’ Honestly, though, it’s otherwise quite difficult for them to push through on the ground through my deadly units, and depending on my draw, I can amass some ground pressure or defense quite quickly. Having said that, Passionate Stonehammer is terrifying to see now that I’ve dropped Suffocate main. I do think the deck is just asking to trip over its own feet with its influence requirements, so maybe I’m getting worked up over not much.
(For context: I had just spent 25 minutes trying to sort through my technology issues before this match, so I am not entirely in the right headspace for some serious Eternal, to be perfectly honest. Also, I had flamed AsheAcer very hard for bringing this deck to the tournament prior to starting because it’d require some serious Magical Christmas land draws to win in general. Let’s see how that panned out. >.<)
Game 1:
My first hand is a Vanguard, a Touvon, a Seat, a Cylix, an Edict, a Spiteling, and a Curtain Call. My main concern is that I have a lot of depleted power, and won’t be doing anything relevant until Turn 4; especially on the draw, this hand is probably far too slow in this matchup. My 2nd hand contains a Cylix, a Shadow Symbol, an Expert, 2 Sigil, and 2 Exploits. Although I don’t have any removal, hopefully I can snag the burst threats out of their hand before they even drop, and it’s probably still better than going down to 6. They open with a Justice Symbol, and I draw a 2nd Expert – it’s great that now I have a semi-threat should I need it – before playing a Sigil and 1 Expert. They play an Ironthorn, ship it back to me, and I Exploit, seeing a Martial Efficiency, Ruffian, and Vanquish; seeing as they have an active Ironthorn that I won’t be removing any time soon, Ruffian seems like the best choice, especially if they draw a flier shortly. I elect not to plunder here, cause I’ve learned from Match 1 what typically happens with my auxiliary power. They poke in for 3 with Ironthorn, and pass it back to me. I play a Sigil, Exploit, and see that they’ve found a flier – no thank you. Hopefully I’ll be able to bait out the Vanquish with my Amplified Logistics Expert the following turn so they won’t have it around for when I drop Touvon.
Unfortunately, they topdeck Tower like a lucky AsheAcer, and I’m absolutely flipping out. XD It also puts 2 fliers on board, which is very tricky for my current hand to deal with. I draw a Curtain Call, and opt to play out my Amplified Logistics Expert here. There is an argument for saving it and just Curtain Calling, but that is way too defensive and doesn’t really deal with the site, so I’d rather draw out the Vanquish, and slam the Touvon later on to deal with the site ghagt way and hopefully get max Call value. I do still need a pretty beefy unit to push through to that site because of the known Efficiency in hand, so I need to make sure my Touvon sticks.
Understandably, they Vanquish the Logistics Expert and put me down to 10. I play a power and pass, heavily signalling Touvon; they play a pair of Gloves on a Valkyrie, but still walk the Ironthorn right into my big ambush boi. On my turn, I Curtain Call and activate Touvon, taking down the site and hopefully stabilising for a bit life wise – I drew a Vine Grafter, so if I can get down a Slug, that should be game. They attack for 5 in the air and put me down to 11 before passing, and on my turn, I play and activate Grafter, putting away the Shadow Symbol for Slug before cracking in with Touvon for 8. On his turn, Ashe plays Ruffian, which is just lethal, but then he has to style on me by playing a 2nd Ruffian – and he still has a Martial Efficiency in hand. 1 turn too late, unfortunately. 😛
Game 2:
I mulligan my 1st hand with only 1 power; my second 7 has 2 Time Sigil and 5 Shadow cards, which is not passable either, so I unfortunately have to go to 6, which is rather nervewracking against this deck. My 6 has 2 Shadow Symbols, 1 Time Symbol, a Temple Standard, an Alhed, and a Touvon. Oh dear. We each open with a Symbol, and they have a T2 Ironthorn again. Joy. I play the Standard on Turn 2, and they follow up with a pair of Gloves on their Ironthorn before slapping me for 6. I draw an Alchemist, play a Shadow Symbol and decide to just pass with the intent of plundering away Touvon and deploying a pair of Alheds or my Spiteling next turn; unfortunately, I don’t think Touvon will be terribly helpful in this matchup. They play a Spireguard Valkyrie, and I block the Ironthorn with my Alchemist. On my turn, I end up playing the Spiteling; in hindsight, it would have made more sense to play their pair of Alheds, even if Spiteling is better value cards wise; I need to quickly start pressuring them before they kill me in the air, and it’s not as if Ashe would ever take the trade.
On their turn, they play a Patroller, Justice Symbol, and a Ruffian, clocking me in the air for 10. Oh dear. I better find a removal spell quick. On my turn, I play an Alhed before hitting for 4, holding up the Alchemist to block the Patroller, and passing. In hindsight I should have attacked with Spiteling here since I had no intention of blocking with it. They play an Ijin, and just attack with the Valkyrie for 3; I opt not to ambush in the Alchemist, and on my turn, I play a Cylix, draw with Trove and pick up a Symbol. Oh no. I play out my 2nd Alhed since I had the Time Sigil to grow the pair of them next turn, and attack for 5 with the Timekeeper. On their turn, they play power and attack with all their units, making the Patroller a 5/3; I ambush in Alchemist and block so that I would have exactsies for lethal next turn. Not that it terribly mattered since they had Martial Efficiency for lethal in the air anyway. Sometimes you just don’t draw any of your removal, and there’s not a terrible amount I felt that I could have done about that. I’ve definitely gotten extremely lucky on Ashe in previous TNEs, so turnabout is fair play. 😛
Match 4: (VS TCGcthulhu)
This is the deck I brought Xenan to beat, so I hope that this pans out well. Ideally we can ramp into an early Vanguard to throw them off, or just completely mess up combat for them between ample removal and deadly units. It also definitely helps that in these factions, they don’t have the 1 cost market spell to get rid of my power dorks particularly easily, so there’s a lot less risk to including them. As long as I don’t draw horribly, and play around the obvious interaction like Technique, I should be good.
Game 1:
My first 7 has a Time Symbol, 2 Time Sigils, a Spiteling, 2 SAAs, and a Curtain Call. Whilst it’s nice to have 2 pieces of removal, I can’t play anything in my hand, and since I’m on the play, it’s too risky of a hand to keep against Soldiers; I redraw into a hand with 2 Time Sigils, a Seat, 2 Spitelings, a Curtain Call and an Alhed. Whilst I can still only cast 1 card in hand, hopefully I can either draw into a Plunder card or simply another shadow source to unlock the rest of my hand. Whilst this hand is still quite risky, I don’t think it’s worth going to 6; might be very wrong, however. I open with Seat, and they play a Painting into Logistics Expert. I draw a Time Symbol and play out my Alhed; they play out a Dovid and Daru Lee, which is pretty terrifying due to my lack of removal. I play my Time Symbol and just ship it back. On their turn, they play Hifos, and go for a Call, but misclick and don’t end up exhausting any of their Soldiers. Undeterred, they clock in for 4 with Dovid. On my turn, I play a pretty big Spiteling, and although they have Dovid into Vicious Overgrowth for the Spiteling, they don’t have a good answer for the Timekeeper since they aren’t running Permafrost in their deck.
On my turn I hit my 6th Time influence for Alhed and slam; fearing the trick I do have, they don’t block, and I follow up with my 2nd Spiteling. They go Dovid into Vicious Overgrowth again, but still don’ really have good attacks. Seeing that they have no open power, I start by attacking with all my units; they let my 2 Timekeepers through, and I Curtain Call for lethal. Considering I was unable to find a removal spell for Hifos at any point, I think that would have been a drastically different game hadn’t they misclicked, but unfortunately that’s how it panned out, and my draw capitalised on that very quickly. 
Game 2:
I mull my 1st 7 with 2 Shadow Symbols, a Curtain Call, a Steward, 2 Alchemists, and a Trail Maker; even though I am on the draw, no Time influence means this is an incredibly sus hand. My 2nd 7 has 2 Time Sigils, a Seat, a Cylix, a Vanguard, an Alchemist and an SAA. Excellent: interaction and Vanguard. Snap keep. They play a Painting into a Shock Troops, and I lead with my Xenan Cylix – I’m not planning on doing anything this turn anyway, and in case I draw a Twinned Spiteling, I want to guarantee undepleted power later on down the line, which I consider worthwhile despite losing out on the minor upside of possibly eventually drawing a Trove. They poke in for 1, play Logistics Expert and a Justice Sigil, and pass; I draw and play an Alhed since they have nothing on board that can get past me right now.
They play a depleted Painting and pass, which probably means they’re pretty stuck on Primal influence; as a result, I choose to attack with Alhed and hold up Alchemist or SAA. They find it in the form of a Vow next turn, and elect to lead with Dovid into a Vicious Overgrowth to take out Alhed and poke in for 1 before playing a Daru Lee; the Lee immediately eats a SAA from me. I draw a Curtain Call, and elect to play the power and pass; considering that I don’t have much of a board presence right now, I’m considering plundering the Curtain Call away since it’s not fantastic in this position to guarantee that I have enough power for Touvon.
That is exactly what I do when they attack, and they fortunately do not have Martial Efficiency – they had Hardiness, which allows their Troops to get in for 4, but they still end up losing their Dovid. On my turn, I slam down the Vanguard, whereas on theirs they play another Shock Troops and pass; on my turn, after a little deliberation, I choose to open by attacking with Vanguard – they can double block and trade, but they know about Curtain Call in my deck, which probably makes them a little wary because it puts them at risk of losing their whole board; even if they do have a trick of their own, it means they won’t be able to use it against Touvon. Besides, without Permafrost, they don’t have a good answer to Touvon main. They do have the Argo’s Technique, and I lose my Vanguard, but next turn they attack and I plop a Touvon in front of the Shock Troops – whilst there is a risk of them having just drawn Martial Efficiency, considering they didn’t have it previously, the odds are pretty low. They do not, and instead play out their 3rd Shock Troops post-combat.
On my turn, to be power efficient, I play my Sigil alongside a Vanguard and Grafter before attacking in with Touvon. On their turn, they play a power and pass, and when it comes back to me, I draw with Touvon to see if I draw anything interesting before attacking; I do draw an Edict, but even if I use it I don’t have lethal this turn. Either way, I’m incredibly far ahead at this point that it’s not too much of a concern; post-combat, I put away a Time Symbol and grab Slimespitter Slug; in hindsight, I should have probably put away 1 of my 2 Spitelings because with a Touvon on board and them having very few ways of dealing with it, I have a great outlet in which to dump my power, so I should be playing out power where I can. They have a Vicious Overgrowth to deal with a Soldier of mine on their turn and amplify it to buff their units, but on mine I Edict a Shock Troops, and they proceed to scoop it up.
Post-tournament thoughts:
On the bright side, I managed to win both match-ups which I had brought this deck specifically to combat, but I was completely blindsided by some unexpected archetypes – I guess you should never be targeting your expected meta too aggressively. I wasn’t impressed by Moldermuck nor Suffocate in my market at all, and I’ll be swapping them out for something different moving forward; I’m considering moving Exploit to the market because as we saw in the games against Ashe, whilst it’s nice to rip a key threat from their hand, it can be too slow on occasion against the aggro deck – plus, sometimes your opponent just topdecks like a maniac. I’m also considering playing Devastating Setback in the market just as a fail-safe against the go-wide decks I appeared to struggle against. Of course, I also have the option to pack The Speaking Circle should aggro be less popular, but I honestly don’t think that will be the case. XD
In terms of the main-deck, there was some discussion in the tournament chat about KTE, most likely in a Argenport or Kerendon shell, being a very good counter to Soldiers and Sentinels, which I wholeheartedly agree with. I tried to make the powerbase in Kerendon work but it just completely fell apart on me; perhaps KTE might still work in a different shell, perhaps Purpose, but I’m not entirely sure how that would look like. If Kerendon becomes popular, I think I’d probably still keep Steward in the 4 drop slot, but there aren’t really that many good options against Kerendon on that curve slot. If KTE does become popular, however, I might need to dial back some of the power dorks to avoid getting completely blown out by one on Turn 4.
On the other hand, judging from what I’ve seen poking around ladder as of late, some people might be playing Xenan Midrange as well – this very iteration, thank you very much. Now if that’s what people are bringing to counter Soldiers and Sentinels (honestly, I think both this and KTE work – it really is a matter of preference), then I would almost assuredly go Ubsat since there’s still a lot of value in silencing their hand later in the game, and tends to be more impactful against the cards Xenan Midrange decks are playing. (I’m looking at you, Twinned Spiteling.) Although those match-ups tend to devolve into whoever can play their Ubsat first, which isn’t always the most fun thing to play – or watch.
Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with how I played, and I still consider this deck to be a very good ladder climber as well as a solid choice for the very last TNE of this season tomorrow. The deck itself is fairly intuitive – I mean, it’s just like all other midrange decks – so if you’re still searching for something to bring tomorrow, this definitely feels like a reasonable choice, so pick it up and give it a few games. Hope I don’t have to end up facing any of you on this list in the Swiss. XD
As per always, you can find me on Twitter @stormguard798 or lurking in the FE or TEJ Discord to talk about this deck, Eternal in general, or not Eternal in general. Until next time. 🙂
P.S. For all the people wondering why the sudden change of series title, we were recently joking in TEJ chat about all the fun different puns that you can make with the abbreviation of my username: Storm. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of very good ones, and this is the title I settled on. Hopefully, this tournament report can give you a good snapshot of the current meta, but like most weather reports, it’ll probably be inaccurate by the time it gets published. 😛
Careful Considerations - Ramblings of an Aspiring Azorius Lawmage 