Hi everyone, it’s stormguard798, and we’re back with another instalment of The Proving Ground. Now, those familiar with the results of the most recent Throne Open, you might be aware of a super sweet Instinct Amphitheatre deck, largely pioneered by the members of The Barbarian Camp (TBC). For those unfamiliar with the combo, it has 3 components:
–Autotread: You can discard 1 card and spend 1 power to deal 1 damage to your opponent.
–Malaga Amphitheatre: Whenever one of your units deals damage to your opponent, you replenish power based on your site’s health, which will be at least 1 power.
-Someway to draw cards whenever your Autotread deals damage, be it a weapon like Warhorn or Spellshaper, or a relic like Tormented Crown.
Once you get all 3 combo pieces on the board, whatever resources you spent to ping your opponent with the Autotread would be immediately replenished, so in theory, you could repeat this loop an infinite number of times. (Or in the case of Crown/Spellshaper, as many cards as you have in your deck.) While going for a combo kill was possible, instead of going all-in much like other combo decks of the past, TBC’s build leveraged the strength of Autotread and Amphitheatre as powerful, aggressively slanted cards, putting together an Instinct aggro list that could combo off in your face if you let things drag out for too long. Colloquially, the deck is known as ‘Crossbows’ since the Scorpion Traps look like crossbows. Having never managed to infiltrate with Amaran Stinger in my life, I am unable to confirm this fact.
At this point, you’re probably wondering, why exactly are you telling us this ridiculously long-winded story solely comprised of information I could figure out simply by looking on Eternal Warcry? Good question. Well, a few weeks ago, Austin Aru’reTheIncomprehensible (henceforth referred to as AATI) proposed a Destruction variant of the list in the FE server, substituting the card-draw element of the Instinct deck with Reconnaissance. Although it was a slow-spell whose effect only lasted for 1 turn on top of requiring you to decimate the spell, it was 1 cost cheaper, and it’s not going to matter if you have 1 less power the next turn when you’ve won. On top of that, you also have access to 8 paintings that overlap in Fire, which is fantastic since, as with a lot of other aggressive-leaning decks, we’ll be base-fire. That’ll hopefully make the influence more consistent.
Now, while I think the concept has some merit to it, I think that making simple substitutions for all the lost Primal cards isn’t the way to go. By doing that, you’re losing out a lot on what Shadow can offer you as a faction. IMHO, the best way to go about this is see if the strategy is actually viable is to start from scratch. If you’ve caught the last 2 episodes of the FECast/Weather Report, you might remember 2 concepts that we’ve talked about: the uWu deckbuilding approach, and the Testing Diary. Now, while it’s was nice to talk about those concepts, I think it’d be helpful to put the theory into practice – which is exactly what we’re going to do today.
Now, what I end up writing here is more detailed and explanatory than what I might put in the team private channels – my teammates are all extremely competent players and have worked with me long enough that I don’t necessarily need to articulate my thoughts as explicitly as I do here. That being said, for a wider audience, elaborating on my thoughts will hopefully lead to a more comprehensive understanding – and the inevitable reasoned contesting.
Individual Card Discussion:
So to start with, I’m building this deck with 2 considerations in mind:
-I want it to be a fairly aggressively deck, with the primary gameplan of just murdering my opponent, and a secondary gameplan of the combo finish.
-I wanted to include Autotread, Amphitheatre and Reconnaissance in the deck in some capacity, being the combo pieces, but I’m unsure if I want them in the maindeck or in the market.
Autotread is just a really strong card in general – it’s fantastic in the aggro mirrors and it helps push damage through Regen units. That means I was comfortable including it in the maindeck as a 4 of.
Now here is where it gets a little bit trickier. I had previously disliked Amphitheatre in the main of the Instinct version: with Pause and Equivocate, the deck felt a little more defensive, so TJL felt it better to include Theatre/Spellshaper in the market since they are cards that are much better at pushing an advantage rather than coming back from behind. Having said that, given that we wanted to be as aggressive as possible, and if you can stay ahead, Amphitheatre has the potential of being a really powerful card – I think there is a way of building the deck to better support that strategy, so for now, I’m including the Amphitheatre main.
That being said, I don’t think I can necessarily say that of Reconnaissance. The ceiling on Amphitheatre is reasonably high; I’d argue that isn’t the case for Reconnaissance. It’s a slow-speed spell that leaves you vulnerable to being blown out, and the decimate ability isn’t particularly helpful outside of combo turns since the cards you draw are unlikely to synergize with your strategy, at least in Constructed. Spellshaper has a higher floor, being a weapon that draws you cards with optional interaction attached that worked well with the Aegis Amaruq. Since I believe that the applications for Recon are minimal for non-combo situations, I decided to include it in the market and not the main deck.
Next up, I thought of the various components to make this deck work. I’m looking for:
-Cheap units that help facilitate getting on the board early.
-Cheap interaction to clear out problematic elements, but that would also allow me to keep committing to the board.
-Having a few ways to play the long-game so that I could still eke the last points of damage through even if I stumbled a little early.
-Having a gameplan if I’m on the draw, or having ways to accrue an advantage if I’m at parity.
Units:
D’Angolo Houndmaster – The card is very good. With both Autotread and Amphitheatre in our deck, we can empty out our hand quite quickly, which means we can often get Hounds for very cheap – or possibly even free. In the late-game, it can spit out additional attackers that can make it difficult for the opponent to contest if they only have spot removal: even if they spend it on the Houndmaster, you still probably got an undercosted 4/4 out of the deal. If you play the card early, with the combination of Quickdraw and Valor, it’ll be hard for your opponent to contest the card through combat, particularly if I ended up running fast-speed interaction. If I’m at parity with someone, most of the time, people will have to spend an actual card to deal with the Hellhound, so you’re able to get at least a 2-for-1; if not, then Houndmaster will run away with the game in a jiffy, generating a low-cost 4/4 every turn. Unfortunately, the card is really poor on the draw as it requires attacking to function at all, but I do think the overall power level of the card makes up for the times I have to play it when I’m behind – having played some test games, I certainly stand by that statement.
Auralian Supplier – Another example of a card that is extremely poor when you’re behind, but is pretty powerful if you’re at parity or ahead. It refills your hand with (hopefully) gas once you start struggling to push damage against a more defensive deck; it just provides additional cards in aggro mirrors, which are often about ekeing out incremental advantage. Even if you only draw 1 card off the Supplier, a 3 cost 2/2 that replaces itself isn’t too shabby. Most of the time, even if you are behind, you won’t be behind in both aspects of the draw clause. (if you are, and somehow your opponent has more cards AND more units than you…why haven’t you conceded yet? XD) If I’m ahead and get to pick up both cards, I have accrued a massive advantage over my opponent – most of my cards will be fairly low cost and easy to play from my hand, and chaining Suppliers into each other is a pretty effective way to run away with the game. There have been times where I’ve drawn this and it’s been atrocious, but most of the time, the card is at least a 2-for-1, and I’m perfectly happy with that.
Borderlands Lookout – This is a card that struck me as an incredibly strange omission from a lot of aggressive time-based lists. Unless you’re running into Worlds competitor imestr8 and their incredibly innovative Factionless deck a lot on ladder (Cast Iron Furnace still haunts my dreams), Borderlands Lookout usually ends up being a 2/3 for 1. Even as a vanilla unit, that’s a pretty strong expected floor. 3 health also means that it’s also reasonable as a defensive unit on the draw against other aggressive decks – sometimes they’ll spend a Torch on it and move on, but it means they don’t have that removal spell for your more threatening units. Yes, it’s a 1 drop and has a relatively low impact later in the game – that’s because it’s a 1 drop. It’s a 1 drop that performs well both aggressively and defensively, which fulfil my criteria perfectly. It got buffed for a reason.
Grenadin Drone – I think the Grenadin Drone is the best Fire 1 drop in a vacuum, Amaruq or not. Here’s my reasoning: on offense, if you drop this early, you can get in with both units for 2 damage, just as any other 2 attack 1 drop would. On defense, you can block 2 X/1s, as opposed to just 1; you can also eat a snowball and still be left with something. Yes, your Drones cannot attack through opposing X/1s. I fail to see how this is a problem in the current metagame, barring Wump&Mizo. (To be fair, not being able to attack through a W&M is the least of your problems against that card if you don’t have removal.) To me, the various assorted 2/1s are generally terrible if you’re ever on the draw in the mirror. Whilst Kazuo/Pyroknight have some late-game applicability, if you ever reach a point where you’re activating them…you’re probably not in great shape anyway. I am more than open to opposing arguments, however.
Nahid’s Faithful – This is probably 1 of 2 cards that I will get the most raised eyebrows about. The deck doesn’t have any sacrifice synergies, nor payoffs for it being a Cultist. However, let me put it this way: this is a 1 cost 2/2 Lifesteal, which you can sacrifice your stunned or already expended unit to accrue value with. Sounds pretty cheap to me! Yes, it isn’t a 1 drop in that you’ll ever want to play it on T1, but it’s still a lot of stats for cheap, and you might play this with another 1 cost unit on T2 anyhow. In addition, it’s also quite strong in the aggro mirror, even on the draw: Lifesteal can help swing a game in your favour in the aggro mirror, and if it makes sense for you to sacrifice a unit to it, a 4/4 Lifesteal is a giant pain to deal with. Kira decks are mostly playing Dovid as a multifaction 4/4 for 2 power – with a downside – because of how little removal can affect it. The same reasoning applies in this case, albeit with perhaps a pinch more work. Though not a major contributing factor, the interaction between Nahid’s Faithful and Grenadin Drone is very nice. I once went T1 Drone into T2 double Faithful; my opponent scooped on the spot.
Blackhall Warleader – I don’t remember who initially added Blackhall Warleader to Stonescar, but whomever did: thanks. Although it doesn’t snowball quite as hard as Amaruq can, 3 toughness means it can’t be eaten by Salvo, which is helpful in the aggro mirror. A Bold Adventurer on defense isn’t terribly exciting, but serviceable, and ideally that’s not a situation we’re often in. We have 34 units, which means our unit count is fairly comparable to that of Stonescar lists whom also run Blackhall Warleader. Though the buffs to your units aren’t as impactful as with ChaCha or Jekk, it’s still some nice extra value to have for when the Warleader is removed. It’s unfortunate that the unit is a massive removal magnet and doesn’t provide any summon value, but given how hard it can run away with the game, I believe its inclusion is warranted.
Skullbreaker – This unit feels like it fails on multiple different axes – when you’re playing defensively, it’s an Argenport Soldier, which is pretty awful across most matchups. Being multifaction is minor upside considering how much Annihilate/Send an Agent have fallen off the face of the meta. It also has no relevant summon effect. The rest of our current units also don’t have a great way of augmenting the unit in any way, which is unfortunate, since the battle skills scale really well with bonus stats. That being said, it does do 1 thing very well, which is eke those last few points of damage over the line when things are starting to get stalled out – it forces your opponent to put multiple units in front of it to avoid damage, which, in a faction combination with not much evasion, is something we’re lacking a little. In the 1st few test games, it’s never been particularly fantastic, but maybe we just need the right situation for it to shine. Definitely a card I’m keeping my eye on.
Powercell – Since you only have 1 other Sentinel in the deck, most often than not, it’s a 2/2 Decay that gives you a card, which is…fine. Decay is a solid battle skill both offensively and defensively, and having an additional card to manipulate is certainly helpful. My reasoning for not including the card is simple: it doesn’t facilitate our primary gameplan. In TBC’s Instinct version, you have all 3 combo pieces main, and whilst you still have a reasonable aggressive gameplan, you can lean harder into the combo gameplan since you have the card draw piece both main and market. That means there are times where you can spit out all 3 combo pieces in 1 turn with Power Burst providing the additional power to do so.
That’s not something that really happens with this configuration of the build. Since you’re dipping into your market, your opponent is likely to know something is up, and therefore will appropriately play around it. In the Expedition version of the deck, you run Strategize, so you have more ways of manipulating the extra card. But here? Your options are pitching it to Autotread or using it as market fodder. Since our curve is even lower than that of the original list, you’re rarely using the Power Burst, for, well, an extra burst of power. As a result, I don’t think Powercell is a good inclusion for our primary strategy, and hence I did not include it.
Shadowlands Guide – I was looking for a card to just tie the deck together, and Shadowlands Guide seemed to fit the build really well. Although this isn’t Menace Trove, we’ve still got 2 very strong 1 drops to bring back in Faithful and Autotread. I’m not including the full 4 of because the card is a little awkward in the early game and in multiples, but it seems like a solid roleplayer, buying back that Autotread you’ve invested so many cards into. It helps rebuild your board pretty effectively after a wipe, and while 3/1 isn’t an amazing set of stats in the face of Snowballs, it still pressures well often enough.
Non-units:
Open Contract – If you’re a deck that can capitalise on the tempo advantage gained by Open Contract like Stonescar Aggro, then the card is very, very good. Yes, removal can be dead in certain matchups, what a shocker. But this removal spell is unbelievably efficient, and should you be using this effectively, your opponents won’t be able to gain much advantage, if any, from the cost reduction. Being as cheap as it is, you are often also to commit to the board whilst playing this removal spell in the same turn. Being slow speed is unfortunate, but it’s already pretty fantastic. One of Shadow’s specialties is having far too much removal, and Open Contract certainly falls into that category. Even if you’re behind and can’t necessarily take full advantage of the tempo, trading a 1 drop removal spell for a 3 or 4 cost unit seems pretty power-efficient to me.
Torch – It’s Torch. Even at slow speed, it’s fantastic, cheap removal and burn. It’s a good card both from behind and while ahead, and the option to go to your opponent’s face when you’re getting stalled out. When used as removal, you’re often trading up in power. It’s an aggressive Fire-based deck, which means as a rule of thumb, you need a pretty good reason not to run Torch.
Pause for Reflection – The card is a solid tempo spell. You can either shove a blocker out of the way, save your unit from targeted removal or a board wipe, or just delay a problematic relic for a turn. If Shrine decks become popular on ladder again, then this might come in handy for disrupting them. Since we don’t have access to Amaruq in this build, which Pause synergizes particularly well with, I’ve elected not to include it in this particular build – the tempo advantage is nice, but returning the unit to hand pales in comparison to killing it most of the time. It also isn’t fantastic if we’re behind – saving a key unit is strong, but compared to the likes of Elysian Spells, we have fewer incredibly high impactful cheap units. I could see leaning the other way depending on the meta/how I find the build, however.
Send An Agent/Defile – Fast speed is nice. However, it’s still a 2 cost reactive spell, which means you’re rarely in a position to pass holding this up since it means you won’t be able to develop your board if they pass without playing anything threatening. The biggest advantage of all these 1 cost spells is that you can play them and another unit in the same turn; the odds of you doing so with these 2 cost spells are much slimmer. Sear might be a consideration since you might be able to burn your opponent’s face in some spots, but it functions terribly as removal. I didn’t like Equivocate in the Instinct list for similar reasons. They are still powerful enough to possibly warrant market inclusion, but overall I just feel that they are incongruous to our primary game plan and overall quite conditional.
The Market:
Since I’m playing Reconnaissance in the market, my options for market access are one of the Shadow Merchants or Blazing Salvo. Out of the Shadow Merchants, I believe Cen Wastes Smuggler as a 3/2 Decay is the most aggressively slanted, and therefore the best option. On the one hand, Blazing Salvo being fast speed gives opponents less opportunity to respond to the combo and can also be conditional removal. On the other hand, Cen Wastes Smuggler is probably the stronger card and gives us a much more varied market. I elected to go with a Blazing Salvo market just to keep the deck as lean as possible, even if I’m unlikely to get much mileage out of the spell itself. I could definitely see going for a Cen Wastes market being correct, however, particularly if Amphitheatre market ends up being correct.
For the market in general, I’m obviously disregarding the requirement of the card necessarily having to be good while ahead, solid behind, and so forth. It’s a market card; it’s supposed to be powerful in the right situation but very conditional.
(We’re playing Recon in the market, so we shan’t be going over that again.)
Dissociate – People never see this card coming for some reason. It is kind of a terrible pseudo-negation spell since they still get the card back, but 3 additional power is quite a steep cost, and that probably buys you enough time to hopefully kill your opponent. It also had some additional utility in returning relics like a Shrine or Sling, which, being such crucial pieces, can completely dismantle their game if executed well. In open decklists, it’ll probably be less powerful since it’s straightforward to play around, but I’ve pulled off some amazing blowouts in the few test games so far.
Sear – I considered Sear maindeck as well for some extra reach, but given I decided to go for a Salvo market, Sear market made a little more sense. It can go face and it can go at sites if they become problematic. I did consider other means such as pump spells, for instance Scythe Slash/Rampage in case Face Aegis becomes a problem with the likes of Sling decks, but we’ll see how the meta evolves going forward to make a decision.
Send An Agent – We mentioned it above, and between this and Defile, I think this is the stronger late-game removal spell since it isn’t restricted by cost, with the upside of hitting relics like Grodov’s Burden (Honestly, I don’t remember any monofaction relics that people play nowadays). It’s a fairly reactive spell, but still does its job incredibly efficiently.
Edict of Shavka – I am a little hesitant to include a 3rd removal spell since I overall have an incredibly reactive market, but right now in Throne, I consider Hooru Kira and Elysian Spells to be some of the strongest decks in the metagame right now, which means Edict of Shavka is a very effective removal spell against those archetypes; being unable to be negated or blocked by Aegis is a delightful cherry on top. Being blocked by Silverblade Intrusion is rather unfortunate, but it’s still a great removal spell from what I’m expecting.
Exploit – This is a consideration to take out combo pieces from opponents’ hands or possibly a board wipe. But with combo having been aggressively wiped out, and Exploit being a pinch too expensive and slow speed as well, there just never felt like a good time to pull the card. Having to Salvo 1 of our units in the matchups we’re targeting with this card doesn’t feel great either.
(As an aside: if I were to try a Cen Wastes Smuggler market, my 1st instinct would be to go: Edict of Makkar/Sabotage/Reconnaissance/Send an Agent/Bandit Queen. Having double Fire for Bandit Queen is reasonably likely given that’s where our Paintings overlap and that we’re still base Fire, whereas double Shadow for cards like Silverblade Menace are much less likely.)
Things to try out:
The 1 drop debacle – Do we want Borderlands Lookout?
I’ve elaborated plenty on why I think Grenadin Drone works really well; however, there have been other considerations for the 2nd slot over Borderlands Lookout. Alluring Qirin is a good way to hamper opposing spell-based decks, for instance Kira and Elysian, particularly if we swap on over to a Cen Wastes market so that the symmetrical spell-dampening effects doesn’t affect us as much. Another consideration to hamper Kira and Elysian is Entrancer: silencing those cheap, haymaker units before they even hit the board. For both of these cards, however, their stats are a lot weaker than that of Borderlands lookout – even with evasion, they’re likely going to equate to less damage throughout the game, so it may not be worthwhile to target those specific archetypes.
One other consideration is whether it’s possible to reliably cast these varied 1 drops on T1. Of course, that isn’t possible with Nahid’s Faithful, but concentrating all our 1 drops into 1 faction might lead to a smoother power base.
Potential influence issues – do we want this many Shadow cards/do we want to play double Fire cards?
One thing of note is that we have significantly more Shadow cards by percentage in this Destruction Build compared to the Instinct build – while I do think our influence is better overall due to the presence of 8 Paintings, getting 3 factions of power can still be tricky for an aggro deck. It might therefore make more sense to trim back the number of Shadow cards we have and opt to play a Praxis-heavy deck splashing for the combo instead. Another thing to consider is whether it’s feasible to pull off double Fire influence in the main deck: off the top of my head, the only cheap unit we might consider that would require double Fire influence would be Midchief Salus, which is…fine, but probably not significantly better than any of our 2 drops to warrant straining our power base like that. Again, thanks to 8 Paintings overlapping in Fire, double Fire is much more realistic than the likes of double Time in the Instinct version for the likes of Teacher of Humility. As a result, paying close attention to what influence you manage to get each game and how the powerbase functions as a whole will give you a better understanding of the options you might have when tuning the deck.
Is the combo even worth it?
Whilst it is technically possible to pull off the combo in only Praxis, Warhorn isn’t a playable card in Constructed at 4. Granted, Recon isn’t a particularly playable card in Constructed either, but being half the cost and in the market, it’s easier to pull off. The concern is, of course, if it’s even worthwhile. There is a much higher cost for going 3 factions as opposed to 2 factions for aggressive decks than more midrange/controlling ones, and while the combo kill is nice, it might not be worth sacrificing the consistency you need as an aggressive deck. Praxis and Stonescar Aggro are both incredibly solid decks, and considering it’s rare that you’re able to pull off the combo kill since you only have the 1 recon, take into consideration any struggles you might have with your power base against any games you sneak a win with the combo.
Decklist:
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/9USoyj3KTxU/the-proving-ground-destruction-theatre-combo
Final thoughts:
Putting together the deck is only about half the battle when it comes to brewing; all these ideas might make sense in theory, but they might pan out very different in theory. That’s why even after we post ‘Testing Diary’ entries and people have tried out the deck, it’s very important to consistently feedback to each other about what felt good, what didn’t, and what you can do to change it. If you’re looking for a strong, innovative deck to bring to a tournament, don’t ever expect it to get handed to you on a silver platter. 😛 The decklist above is a work in progress, and it at least gave my teammates an interesting starting point with which to develop; I wonder if it’ll be the case for any of you? :thinkingface: With the Hour of Glass campaign dropping shortly, I’d also be interested to see if there are any cards with which to help the deck shine.
I also hope that this gave everyone a better idea with regards to the 2 concepts we had discussed in the Weather Reports, and give you a stronger foundation with which to implement it yourself, should you wish. As per usual, if you would like to contest or poke holes in my arguments, you can find me over on Twitter @stormguard798, or lurking in the FE, TEJ or The Misplay Discords. Until next time. 😉
P.S. I realise I keep telling you to find me at the aforementioned Discords, but you might not know where to get the invites – fear not! Here they are! Everyone is incredibly chill, and may you have a good time there too!
Friends of Eternal:
https://discord.com/invite/MYh7hUs
The Misplay:
https://discord.com/invite/7Qk6HXq
Eternal Journey:
Careful Considerations - Ramblings of an Aspiring Azorius Lawmage 