(Fair warning: I’m increasing the age-gate to 18+ here, instead of the usual PG-13 ish. I don’t make them, but there are a lot of explicit jokes involving Mother of Skies in decks that I’m linking. However, since the jokes aren’t at all related to the quality of the deck posted, I’m still going to talk about them. You have been given fair warning.)
Hello everyone! It’s stormguard798, everyone’s favourite stealer of Blue Buff. It’s been a while – I hope you missed me. In this instalment of the Proving Ground, we will be revisiting not one, but TWO decks from the past. Double the value! Aren’t you excited?
(I released the decklists just before, I believe, the time to submit decklists for the Invitation-Only LCQ to not adversely affect my teammates. 😛 I make no representations as to whether my teammates considered playing these. XDD)
1st list: Feln (PS) Mother of Skies.
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/iJBn7O8MAr8/the-proving-ground-feln-mother-of-skies
The objective of the deck is very straightforward: flood the board with a bunch of strong multifaction units, use your sparse interaction to deal with any spells or units that may contest your board position, and slowly bonk your opponent to victory. Very straightforward. Hot off playing an FTP Mother of Skies (‘Mom‘) list at an ECQ in 2020, TNT’s meverz and I brought a Feln Mom list to combat the Even Reaperin and Yeti decks at the LCQ to unfortunately mediocre results. (We did collectively go 15-0 against Yetis though, so there’s that.)
Now, with the advent of everybody’s infrequently arising yet incredibly aggravating Brewer (no, not me) and the new Yeti 2 drop with Huntress levels of ubiquity, we have more of a game plan against the more grindy decks. On top of that, it still maintains a pretty effective game plan against the aggressive decks – a bunch of X/4s and tokens will do that.
*Note: between this and the Feln Mill deck, that is why we didn’t believe that Fire-based aggro would be particularly effective in the LCQ. For clarity’s sake, a Mill deck seeks to discard cards from your opponent’s deck into the void. i.e. This. (Deck by Alison)
After being repeatedly beaten up on ladder by various members of Team Rankstar wielding this deck, I thought it fit to try and build my own version. Tada! Now let’s talk about every card in the deck – and a lot of cards that are not.
(Yes, I am also aware that both Slepher and Alison have posted their iterations of the archetype, which I have linked below for comparison’s sake. I also understand that Alison will be releasing a deck tech on this archetype shortly as well with apparently glowing reviews from my simpees. Alison is a very competent writer, so keep your eyeballs peeled for that.)
Slepher’s List:
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/Pw6JygSRXps/master-s-18-exploited-milfeln-frogmg
Alison’s List:
Things that were pretty much shoo-ins –
–Plunk Wumpkin: It’s a unit-based Primal deck. Might not be the best shell for it, but it’s still just generally good. ‘Nuff said.
(Also, today I learned Plunk’s Eternal ID is #420. I don’t know if that’s real or not, but nice.)
–Mom: Can you even have a Mom deck without Mom? :raised_eyebrows:
–Blight Pass Smuggler: Multifaction market access for a multifaction-unit based deck. Don’t think it’s knot theory.
–Iadria, Twisted Brewer: This card is what makes the deck viable. Previously, you’d run into issues in the late-game where the Time-based midrange units would simply far outclass yours. Now, if they try and attack, then all these big units will trade with your 1/Xs. Many of these decks rely on unit-based removal such as Twilight Hunt. (Barring Xenan with Banish, which they don’t even always run.) This lines up poorly against your interaction suite, which means it’ll be difficult for such an opponent to get the Iadria off the board. This turned what was previously a reasonably tricky matchup for the deck into a pretty good one.
–Champion of Cunning (ChaCu): With the arrival of both Feln Tome and Painting, you finally have a density of good duals to be able to play ChaCu main deck. And boy is this card an absolute house at closing out the game, particularly with all the Hatchlings that Mom can generate.
–Midnight Gale: Following the buff up to 4 health, and consequently, being able to dodge Torch, this is just a solid beater that is difficult for other decks to race. Who needs all those fancy Kira abilities? Admittedly, the influence could be a little tricky to get online on Turn 3, but since you’re already running plenty of duals, I haven’t had any issues.
Individual Card Discussion:
(Support cards)
–Jotun Hurler: This card is my in-game avatar – I will try to shove this card into every deck that I possibly can. Like with Plunk, this is probably not the best shell for it since your ability to manipulate each card isn’t as good as other archetypes, but I think it still does a fine enough job.
[RIP Free Snowballs. I knew thee too well.]
-The Know When to Hold ‘Em/Krull, Xumuc Occultist package: Even after 2 nerfs, Krull is still delightfully playable. As a deck that is pretty power-hungry, particularly with Plunk, this is a great way to add more to the board without spending power. It’s also particularly good into the Mill strategies since they give you plenty of options on what to bring back from your void. My gripe with this plan is that I don’t feel like you have enough ways to manipulate the Krull – plundering it doesn’t help you since you still can’t play the Sigil. The deck also doesn’t run Strategize to maintain a high-enough unit count, or have other ways of discarding it for value such as Shadowcreeper. My first inclination is that 4 market access alone is insufficient to support this, but having not tried out the Krull/Know strategy, I will reserve judgment on that.
–Primal Etchings: I think it’s a perfectly fine market choice given that you’re already heavy Primal to consistently drop T2 Moms. I am not playing the card for 2 reasons:
A. I have 2 cards that cannot be fetched by it; (more on that later.)
B. I’m playing a lower Primal Sigil count so that I can afford to run Cobalt Waystone.
(Naturally, having more market access also means it’s more viable to play Krull, and I have elected to omit both from my deck.)
Even though I do have a lower virtual power count than other iterations (25 + 7 Plunder cards), I haven’t encountered any power issues thus far. This is a deck that doesn’t want more than 6-7 power cards in any given game and can function reasonably well on only 3. My power base also has fewer duals (18 v 21), which in turn means less depleted on Turn 2/3. Not only does that help me play Moms on T2 more easily, but also means cleaner Exploits. This does make me a little weaker in the mirrors since my ChaCus will come online with both abilities later, but I’ve found it’s been worth it.
I like the Face Aegis (Faegis) from Waystone for a simple reason: protecting my ChaCus. Since all your power at minimum gives you Primal influence, by the time you drop ChaCu, it’ll already have Aegis. Consequently, your opponent’s best course of attack is to take it from your hand or deck. Having Faegis up the turn before you drop ChaCu helps mitigate the possibility of disruption. The soundness of this strategy is predicated on 2 factors:
a. How many people are running Aegis disruptors i.e. Vara, Vengeance Seeker.
b. How many people are running hand-attack of some kind. i.e. Rain of Frogs.
From what I’ve seen, with the change to Even-Handed Golem, the number of Even Shadow Midrange decks has appropriately declined, and the popularity of Vara with it. However, Exploit is still regularly played, and I’ve seen some of the non-Shadow Primal decks adopting other types of hand disruption as the popularity of this Feln Mom deck rises. Of course, you’ll need to make the meta call for yourself.
(Interaction)
-Exploit: The quintessential Shadow midrange card. The argument against running this card is that you don’t have good ways of generating card advantage in the deck other than Plunk. However, I feel the deck is strong enough against the aggro decks that we can build up enough of a board to stabilise before using Exploit to take their last card. This means you’re generally not punished as much by drawing Exploit in these matchups.
As I’ve already mentioned, Exploit is a great way to snipe ChaCus from your opponent in the mirror. Other than that, it’s also great against both Kanya Combo and Eccentric Officer combo on ladder. If you’re able to snipe their Eccentric Officer or Imperial Loyalist, both decks pretty much completely fold on the spot.
–Annihilate/Defile/Permafrost: For starters, I ruled out playing Permafrost immediately. Time Midrange really isn’t a thing in the current format, and most other units either got their summon value, can easily break Permafrost/have Endurance, or have static effects that make Permafrost less effective. I think it’s a fine inclusion in more tempo-oriented decks like Skycrag Aggro, but considering we sometimes adopt a more defensive posture, Permafrost just doesn’t make sense.
I initially uploaded the list with 4 of Annihilate, but after parsing through exactly what threat I’m looking to answer, I realised I was totally wrong, and I should be running more Defiles. When I paused to consider the common threats that Annihilate answers that Defile doesn’t, there might be: the previously mentioned Vara, Vengeance Seeker, a Velise, Bear Rider perhaps, and if you subscribe to the Mail school of Kira, Sediti the Killing Steel.
On the other hand, Defile nicks opposing Midnight Gales and Smugglers, Strange Broker, Champion of Chaos, Crafty Occultist… With Iadria out, you might not necessarily even need spot removal to deal with these units, but considering Throne tends towards cheaper units, Defile just covers a little more ground, which is why I ended up going with a 3/2 split.
–Ice Bolt: I’m pretty sure I’m going to get smited by TheBoxer for suggesting this, but I have been considering Ice Bolt for exactly 1 reason: ChaCu. The card is incredibly difficult to deal with, and since I do expect the mirror to be fairly popular, this might be exactly what we need to break it. (Picking off Iadria in a pinch, as well as targeting your own units for some power ramp, gives the card additional utility.) Am I confident that is correct? Absolutely not. It’s why I’ve elected not to do so. But it’s certainly a pretty potent meta call if you’re seeing a lot of the mirror on ladder.
–Sinister Rumors: This is the card I had in the deck before swapping in Flicker. It’s a very versatile card but isn’t as effective without consistent card draw in case you use its 3rd mode. Also, your units don’t get buffed in the void barring ChaCu nonsense. And if you’re doing that…how are you not winning already? A strong and versatile card, but one that doesn’t quite fit into this deck.
–Obstructive Flicker: It negates Savage Incursion, which is the massive payoff for the Mill decks. It also negates board wipes, which, as a unit-based deck, can be pretty devastating. That, coupled with the passive for Iadria, means that I think it’s worthwhile to play the 4 of Flicker main.
–Maveloft Huntress: Not as ubiquitous as it once was, Huntress is still great unit-based removal. Ups our unit count for Grenahen and helps smooth out our power if need be.
(Units)
–Grenahen: While at first glance you might think this is a shoo-in, I actually think that in this meta, you’re in a bad spot if Grenahen doesn’t hit a card. The deck doesn’t have a good way to utilise the body, unlike Sacrifice based decks. Fire Aggro isn’t great right now, so the 1/3 lifesteal body doesn’t add much to the board. As a rule of thumb, I’m looking for at least 38 hits for my Grenahen and Fort Smashers, so I wouldn’t be comfortable in running Hen in either Alison or Slepher’s list.
(The inclusion of Obstructive Flickers also help to increase the ‘hit’ count for Grenahen.)
–The Uncountable: Just another 2-cost multifaction unit – the way your power pans out, you often have depleted power on T3, so this is a nice bridging unit if that happens. It’s also a reasonable way to get additional value out of your Hatchlings in the late game when you draw excess power you don’t need, and close out the game in short order in games where you don’t find your ChaCus.
–Velise, Bear Rider: I think this is an inclusion that makes a little more sense with more Hurlers and Krull, but I’m still not terribly enthused. You’re not aggressive enough of a deck that you’re able to curve out frequently, though it’s still possible. Since you rarely want Iadria to tangle in combat, your good attackers are limited to just Plunk, Gale and ChaCu. And when you’re not in a position to attack with it, or when you simply don’t have a board, then a Striped Araktodon really isn’t very exciting. (I’m looking at you, Wasteland Broker. You’re terrible market access.) In the same vein, it’s why I’m not a huge fan of Velise in the Kira decks, or previously played in TEJ’s version of Even Feln. >.>
Market Discussion: (Yes, I think the market certainly deserves its own section.)
–Formbend/Evolving Olzial/Burglarize/Reappropriator: Let’s be blunt – the relic interaction in Feln is pretty atrocious. You’re still leaving them with something at the end of it. I didn’t mind Formbend in the Feln Moon decks because the Elemental gets easily swept up with everyone else, but here, you still have to spend yet another removal spell. TheBoxer explained in a previous Weather Report why Reappropriator isn’t great. I think Burglarize is an awful card since the relic you steal doesn’t necessarily synergize with the rest of your deck, so it can’t even be considered card advantage. Evolving Olzial is probably the most defensible option since Permafrost isn’t particularly popular right now, but I’m still not a fan of the card given the strength of all the other 5 costs units seeing play in Throne.
My take is this: when you play a Feln deck, you’re either in a position where you can just ignore the relic decks because they aren’t particularly good or you have other ways to get around them (i.e. negation spells for the sweepers out of Combrei Relics), or simply don’t play Feln. XD I think relic-based decks are uncommon enough that it isn’t worthwhile to run them at present.
–Mirror Image/Learned Imitator: These cards are basically 2 sides of the same coin. Mirror Image is for once you already have ChaCu on board, whereas Learned Imitator is for finding the first ChaCu and getting the ball rolling. I’m not a huge fan of Mirror Image because you really should already be winning once you dropped a fully online ChaCu. I haven’t been super impressed by Learned Imitator since you’d rather drop the ChaCu later anyway when you have other things to buff, and on its own, it does take a while to get going with no other units. That being said, it’s nice to have ChaCu Number 5, and probably the card with the highest chance of making it way back into my market.
–Royal Decree/Turn to Seed: Oh man, this is how you know I absolutely hate playing the mirror. XD Specifically, the deck’s complete struggle to deal with opposing ChaCus. You usually have enough units lying around that you can send them in for an attack, even if it isn’t necessarily a very good trade, to activate the Onslaught clause on Royal Decree. Decree is for the ChaCus that are still in hand, whereas Turn To Seed is for once they’ve already hit the board. In terms of single-target hand disruption for combo, Royal Decree isn’t as good since you’re already playing 4 Exploits, but it’s still been pretty strong for me. Of course, if the meta shifts away from hard-to-deal-with, relatively expensive threats like ChaCu, then I could also see dropping 1 or both cards.
–Hailstorm/Vara’s Authority/some other sweeper: To put it quite simply – I’ve never felt the need for one. The deck is so effective at clogging up the board that the decks you usually play sweepers for simply can’t get through you. Also, see above for my thoughts on Fire Aggro right now.
–Helio, the Skywinder: Since every power card in your deck produces Primal influence, you’re drawing a minimum of 3 cards when you drop this, if not more. Apart from Plunk, you can run into a card-flow problem in the late-game, so this card is a great way to refill your hand before promptly dumping it out again.
–Pale Rider’s Timepiece: A little bit of life, a little bit of removal, and an alternative way to close out the game. A very classic Shadow market card, in my opinion. Usually I end up pulling these when I haven’t drawn my ChaCus or Moms, and I have a little bit of difficulty dominating the skies. However, I have yet to use the Spellcraft side of this card – the deck rarely gets up to 12 power. Additionally, with Skycrag Mid skyrocketing in popularity, there are more ways to punish playing the clunky, expensive weapon, so I might swap this out for Imitator.
–Silverblade Menace: Great against Kira, Jarrall decks and those Skycrag Mid decks – spells stack up incredibly fast in those voids. Also a reasonable choice against the Mill decks. (And that 1 person destroying everyone with AAC) Enough decks are running a density of cheap spells that I can’t imagine not playing a market Menace.
–Edict of Makkar (no one plays the Linrei one): If you’re concerned about Time Midrange or Kira decks, I could see playing it in the market. 1 power is incredibly efficient. But with most of the decks I’ve seen on ladder falling into the FPS wedge of the influence star, it just hasn’t been a consideration for me.
-Some kind of draw spell? i.e. Honor of Claws: As I mentioned above with Helio, this deck does look for a big draw effect at times because you can easily run out of cards with this list after getting wiped a few times. There are 2 reasons why I prefer Helio:
a. Being a unit means that it can’t be negated by Flicker or the like;
b. It just draws you more cards by the time you can play it. As I mentioned with the card flow problem, you’re looking for something that just gives you tons of cards in the late-game, rather than something to bridge you over late-game. And yes, Brilliant Idea is just far too risky (on top of you often not ending up with that much maximum power.)
-Additional negation spells? i.e. Backlash: With 4 maindeck Flicker, I already felt like I have enough, but if Combrei Relics/Control continues to be popular for some unknown reason, I could see having a few more options to deal with sweepers/Builder’s Decree.
Playing the deck: things to take note of.
-You have more fast speed interaction than other variations of the deck, particularly Flicker, which you can’t use proactively unlike the removal spells. This means you should be extremely judicious in managing your power effectively, particularly with the debt from Plunk, and not put yourself in a position where you are liable to be blown out. This is particularly an important consideration against Sacrifice-based decks since you have no way (at least in my version) of removing an on-board Shrine to Karvet.
-Playing Turn 2 Moms is almost always the correct option. Their options to blow you out – sort of – are Open Contract or Call the Hit, the latter being much more popular. If they trade 2-cost removal for it, such as Annihilate/Defile, that’s still fine. You’re still on a completely equal footing in resources. When you consider the sort of decks that the Hatchlings actually have a significant impact against, for instance, Fire Aggro or Sacrifice decks, they don’t have clean ways to get rid of Mom, often requiring a 2-for-1 (or you playing pretty poorly.)
-Sequencing power is always very important. It’s particularly important with this deck because not only are you able to curve out really well, but you also have 2 turn-based power cards in Tome and Painting that will completely blow up in your face when you mis-sequence. And of course, depending on the match-up, you should also consider the importance of the Faegis you might get from Cobalt Waystone. That is balanced against the potential cost of going off-curve for a turn.
2nd list: Larai Skycrag (FP) Sling
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/2KIWTk1Rnd8/the-proving-ground-larai-sling
If you’ve been floating around the main Eternal Discord as of late, you’ll know that Mail has been espousing how awesome Larai Sling is. Granted, the early versions looked a little suspicious, but I quite like this amended version. It’s a little bit soft into the potential Bullseyes out of the Skycrag Mid decks (which, following the nerfs, really shouldn’t be a problem anymore, but I’m not certain), but the removal out of that deck doesn’t line up with your units, so I could see things not going horribly. The deck consists of 2 main components: Sling of the Chi, and units that draw you cards off Sling.
I believe this iteration of the Sling deck was first formulated by TRS, who included the package of Crafty Occultist combined with various Fate cards to gain virtual card advantage. This enables the deck to play much more of a Control game, akin to the Skycrag Garden decks, but with better finishers. Since you’re priced into playing unit-based market access now following the Transpose nerf, you don’t want to be including the Grand Suppressor package (which I didn’t think was particularly good anyway), but that also means you can play the delightful little Crafty lad. Also helps you dig for your Slings, which is nice. [Though not anymore. :(]
The reason I’ve been enjoying the deck as of late is because of the lack of relic interaction. For some time where everyone was playing Bullseyes and Banishes, Sling was liable to be blown out. But as the number of relic decks faded, so did the need for relic interaction. In particular, the Feln based decks are atrocious at answering relics. That allows the relic-based decks to sneak up and shine in the current meta.
Individual Card Discussion:
(Relic Package)
Larai the Appraiser: This card is the reason that you’re playing Sling at all. Now that Sling is 4 cost, you’re typically looking for a 6-health unit on 3 to curve perfectly into your Sling the following turn and replace itself. On top of that, if you have other Sling-able units, then you could twist Larai to find Slings if you don’t already have 1 – or simply want more. The relic suppression static ability isn’t particularly useful but has come up a couple of clutch times against Combrei Relics. (Look at that sad 3/9 Ageworn Vestige now! :P) We fiddled around playing a Jawbone Greatsword in the 4 cost slot as well, but…you always wanted more Slings, so I never ended up fetching it.
Staff of Stories: The problem with including a relic package on top of the Sling package is that you don’t have a lot of wiggle-room to include too many relics, though it’d be nice to have options. We were considering not including any 5 cost relics, cause, let’s be blunt, they generally suck, but we eventually settled on Staff being the least offensive. That being said, you rarely want to actually cast it – of all the games played with this deck, I have deemed that it was correct to play the Staff exactly once. It mostly exists so you can draw a card with your first Larai activation, and subsequently manipulate it with your card selection mechanisms.
The Throne Room – This card, on the other hand, is quite good. The majority of your units are Heroes, and will get buffed from any unit connecting. Additionally, Daraka, Queensguard, is an absolutely fantastic unit to get into play if you have Sling out – Overwhelm, baby! (I’ve never gotten all the way up to Eilyn myself, but if you have…kudos. That’s impressive.) Finally, if you’re feeling really cheeky, Savagery on Rost is a great way to revert the nerf – with some additional upside. 😉
(I believe the initial build played Quicksilver Gateway in the 3 cost slot. Considering how many cards Sling draws, I think it’s pretty obvious as to why that’s a poor choice.)
(Card advantage package)
Crafty Occultist/Strategize/Jotun Hurler: It’s completely moot now, but what you used to be able to do is gain virtual card advantage by shoving away either the spell or unit – or on occasion, both of them. As PSulli very astutely pointed out, it’s very, very good, and pretty much doesn’t give the control decks any kind of leg to stand on. (And why Hurler is included in so many Primal decks.) Even without any fate cards, we are still playing the 4 of Strategize so that we can go digging for either our Sling or Slingable units, whatever suits the occasion.
Plunk Wumpkin: I was a fool for not including this card in the 1st draft. After valiantly trying to pick it off with spot removal, I quickly realised that the best counter to Plunk is Plunk itself. It also helps you dig for your 1-2 punch, and is just a generally really good card. 2 thumbs up.
(Interaction suite)
Torch v Bullseye: You’ve got the slow speed removal which does a little bit more damage, but could also go face if you need it to close out a game. On the other hand, Bullseye is a lot more versatile, being able to pop relics and go after Amphitheater or Garden of Omens (not that either is extremely popular right now) Considering that decks like Stonescar haven’t been terribly popular recently as well as the Milos nerf, I felt that the majority of relevant threats could be cleaned up with only 2 damage, and prioritised playing the Bullseye first. However, I ended up still playing the Torches anyway, so…
Permafrost v Ice Bolt: The key reason why I chose to land on Permafrost over Ice Bolt in this deck is that you can always remove units with pesky statics later on with Sling. The Permafrosts are just there to buy you a little time to get your Slings up and make sure you’re still at a relatively comfortable life total when you do.
Maveloft Huntress: The card is still really good, but after realising this was only in the deck to deal with Plunk (we already have a ton of spot removal), and not even amazingly consistently since it could be easily interrupted by Bullseye, I decided to cut this card in favor of the Yeti itself. Now that we can’t plunder away the Fate cards for power, there just isn’t a compelling reason to include it. (Same goes for Dazzle, for that matter.)
(And of course, your Sling Units)
Rost, the Walking Glacier – Quintessential Sling unit, primarily because if you try and kill it, it just keeps coming back. With Sling blocking any kind of transform effects such as Turn to Seed or Polymorph, it is, to put it quite simply, incredibly difficult to get rid of. Don’t forget it comes back to Sling again once it’s killed. 🙂
Tamarys, the Earthshaker – Your back-up 3 cost Sling unit, this also has the upside of clearing up all of the X/1s typically present out of the Fire Aggro decks. Also a flier, which is nice to halt any aerial aggression.
Xo of the Endless Hoard – The card is getting a pretty substantial change, but I think it still plays just fine in this deck as a Sling-able unit that gets you even more cards. I’m a little hesitant since you really can’t afford to Inscribe this – it sets back our Waystones and Rosts by quite a fair bit – but I think it’s worth trying out, at least to begin with.
Lord Thudrock: This is a really neat innovation from Mail. The deck is naturally power-hungry, and it is imperative that you reach 5+ power if you’re planning on winning, so you play this card as power quite often. On the other hand, if you’re desperate to remove something big and have a Sling out, you can always convert your Larais or Tamaryses into a giant Snowman for a turn. Keep in mind that the Snowman doesn’t have flying if you need Tamarys to block. A conditional effect, but one that can be very powerful.
Market:
Jennev Merchant – Probably the most controversial card somehow? From my experience, the only advantage of playing a mixed market is being able to play Bore/Ruin. However, Jennev Merchant is so important for being able to block Plunk. Smuggler just dies to way too much and doesn’t stabilise you at all if need be. With maindeck Bullseyes, and the market Garden, I just didn’t think I needed the extra relic removal. [Plus, Combrei is getting a nerf so…I’m sure it’ll be fine.]
Obstructive Flicker – Really, this card is just anti-Equalise, or on occasion, Shen-Ra Speaks. We’re not super threatened by wipes because of Rost’s natural resilience to them, and the Transform removal spells don’t work against us. If the Sacrifice based decks with a horde of X/1s become popular again, this is also a strong card against them.
Elemental Fury/Hailstorm – One super unique feature of this Sling deck is that there are no maindeck sweepers, period. Just keep hammering home the fact that the aggro decks are in a really bad position. Sweepers are also pretty atrocious against both Kira and Elysian. While Fury is a little bit too slow to include maindeck for the matchups we want it for, it’s a great curve from Jennev Merchant, and we don’t have to worry about Flicker ruining our plans. It’s great for clearing out Drakes out of Mill, or the various X/4s out of the Feln Mom decks.
Garden of Omens/Kaleb’s Choice – So you have 2 options if you’re looking for Primal-based attachment removal. I might be a little conceited, but I do appreciate the flexibility that Garden provides – plus, it hits opposing Slings, which Choice does not. However, if Combrei Relics somehow continues to be popular moving forward, being able to deal with both Equalize and Stormhalt Plating is very strong.
Turn to Seed/Rain of Frogs – Really, the great ChaCulizer. Rain of Frogs existed in previous iterations of the deck back when the deck still ran a Transpose market. If you’re particularly worried about combo you could maybe include it, but their matchup is so poor against all the other decks that they haven’t been too big of an issue for me. Thus, I’d rather my deck disruption market piece be capable of immediately impacting the board. You also don’t have nearly enough units, especially with Occultist gone, to be able to trigger the Onslaught on Royal Decree reliably, so TTS seems like a solid choice.
Geminon, the Double Helix/Spitflame Draconus – The problem with Geminon is that triple Fire can be very tricky since we’re also running 4 of Waystone. (How the Skycrag Mid managed to pull off that powerbase while still having sufficient Sigils for Jekk is…beyond my tiny brain.) Additionally, the Flying on Draconus is also very important so that you don’t die to any surprise Levitate or Crescendo shenanigans. I’ve yet to ping down any Endurance units, but since they can’t be Permafrosted, I’m sure it’ll come in handy someday.
Savage Incursion – Oh I love this card so, so much. If you’re able to get 20 cards in your opponent’s void and drop this…I don’t see how you’re not winning that game. Unfortunately, without a dedicated plan to mill then, you rarely reach the threshold of 20 cards just naturally. As much as I love to live in Magical Christmas land, I could never get my drakes, so this card simply wasn’t worth it in the market.
Playing the deck: things to take note of
-There are some matchups where it’s often not worthwhile to land a Sling. For instance, against Skycrag Midrange, expensive relics are very easily counter-played against. Fortunately, you do still have a reasonable ‘fair’ gameplan against them and can opt to drop your Slings once you’ve exhausted them of resources – big units can still be problematic for the deck. On the other hand, in matchups such as Hooru Kira, your goal is dig for a Sling, and land it ASAP. Most iterations aren’t running Vision of Austerity these days, so if you can play 1, it’s very likely to stick.
General guidelines of who you should/shouldn’t focus Slings on:
Drop it like it’s hot: Combrei Relics/Control; Stonescar Heavy-Shadow; Hooru Kira; Argenport Mid
Nada – Elysian; Fire-based Aggro; Skycrag Mid.
*Xenan Mid is kind of tricky – while it’s very good against their deck, they also have plenty of removal for it. Ideally, you’d be scouting for Banishes with Crafty Occultists first. Use your razor-sharp discretion.
-Of course, the above information only applies once you’ve sufficiently sussed out the opposing matchup. But what about some general guidance on keeping hands? First things first: I’d mull any hand that has less than 3 power. Since you’re trying to get to 5, 2 power on either play/draw just isn’t going to cut it. [Particularly with no more Treasure Troves to help you dig.] If I don’t have a Sling in hand, then I’m also looking for either a Strategize or a Larai in hand to help me find it. It’s ok to mull to 6, particularly if you have a Sling, because you will completely pop off in the long-game and easily recover that card advantage.
-In the maindeck, only your Rosts and Xos trigger the first clause of Sling. Thus, holding some units back and baiting your opponent into dropping some Slingable units (be it 4-cost Kenna or Vara) is a great way to maximum value, even if occasionally at the expense of a card.
-You’ll be familiar with this if you play a lot of Skycrag, but please keep count of the cards in your hand, taking in mind that your hand count is determined after your Sling draw. Lob some snowballs at your opponent for minimal value if discarding them is the other option, and don’t draw off Plunk if you can’t even deploy the cards in your hand. [Fate cards are now no longer a concern in the hand-count addition.] Also: accidentally running out of cards in your deck is a real possibility, particularly in the Mill matchups.
Concluding remarks:
I think we can safely say that the Feln Mom deck is Tier 1, right up there with Mill, Skycrag Midrange, and probably Kira/Jarrall? I’m not going to horrifyingly embarrass myself by discussing my gameplay of the deck – go check out the LCQ vods (probably) if you want to know how to pilot it.
[Edit note: Welp. So much for that. Run into me on ladder instead? XD)
As for Larai Sling, the nerf to 4 cost is pretty rough, making you much more susceptible to being blown out, but in the right metagame, as we’ve all seen in the past, it has the potential to dole out some serious damage. I can confidently say that both decks are viable, and worth giving a shot. 🙂 I’m unsure as to how the new Valley Beyond campaign will affect both these decks as well as Throne as a whole, but barring a balance patch, I’m pretty confident both these archetypes will continue to see some play. [Though I am admittedly very excited to start lobbing some Dinos left and right.]
…
[Post Nerf-Thoughts]
First thing: RIP Hurler. My second thought: Wow that’s rude. What poor timing. XD To be fair, I think I’ve maybe actually played a Hurler about 2 times in my life, and I don’t plan on increasing that number any time soon. A 5-cost 4/4 with a pair of balls is still probably fine in Limited, but underwhelming for Constructed.
Xo on the other hand…I think is still very, very good, just in a different way. Having Inscribe is delightful (though you don’t want Fire Sigils in the Sling deck), and now you can curve Sling into Rost into Xo! How quaint!
I don’t think that the Feln Mom deck was affected by Hurler too much. The Snowball was mostly for popping Face Aegis, not controlling the board in the early turns. Consequently, I’ve dropped the 3 Hurlers for the 4th copy of Defile and 2 Serpent Hives. It is my understanding that the Xenan Dredge deck has become really popular following the release of Valles Rex, though admittedly I haven’t seen a lot of it myself. Defile is just a nice way to also be rid of those problematic recursive units. The Serpent Hives help poke through Face Aegis without spending a card, and I’m sure does other things as well.
On the other hand, Sling is receiving a major overhaul, to the point where I’m not confident it’s still any good?
Out – 4 Hurlers, 4 Occultists
In – 1 Xo, 4Torch, 2 Mistveil Drake
After looking through the options for additional card filtering, I concluded that everything else sucks and should be dispensed with. Seriously: Herald’s Song is such bad card filtering. One thing that I’ve been a fan of for a while is Mistveil Drake, giving you the sweet, sweet Aegis to protect your Sling while possibly being a Sling unit in the future. Unfortunately, Drake doesn’t pick up the stat buff until after it’s summoned, but it’ll still draw you cards at the end of turn just the same. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not, who knows? Now that you’ve got a weaker fair gameplan, you could also consider running a couple Eilyn’s Favors to better protect your Sling. The Torches are here to stave off any early aggression now that we don’t have Occultists to block with.
…
Thank you very much to EternalWarcry not only for hosting all the decks, but also all the individual cards in case you don’t know what they are. Think I’m an absolute fool for not including Card X? A question on a particular line to take? (Oh boy.) You can find me on Twitter @stormguard798, or lurking in the Friends of Eternal, The Misplay or Eternal Journey Discords. Until next time. 🙂
(Misplay folk, I’m also throwing it back to you guys to release the Sling deck that you guys came up with for the LCQ. Money, mouth, or Mail wins this deckbuilding competition by automatic victory. :P)
Friends of Eternal:
https://discord.com/invite/MYh7hUs
The Misplay:
https://discord.com/invite/7Qk6HXq
Eternal Journey:
https://discord.com/invite/arKqagv
(If you don’t have Twitter already, spare yourself. XD)
Careful Considerations - Ramblings of an Aspiring Azorius Lawmage 