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For those who want to play the [Krazal the Eggerator] deck, I have included the tracking notes and some ways to improve your chances from fizzling out with it. It may seem a little complicated at first, but if you read this, have the deck built and goldfish with it referring back to these instructions it will all come together. I wish I could take credit for any of the following, but all credit is due to Tim Batow, Michael Barnes, & John Hall. Below is the list and the notations used:
Master Hero: 1
1 [Alexstrasza, The Life Binder] (A)
Allies: 15
4 [Dreadsteed] (1)
4 [Swift Hawkstrider] (1)
2 [Wooly White Rhino] (1)
4 [Krazal the Eggregator] (K)
1 [Tol'zin] (Z)
Abilities: 4
4 [Unending Breath] (2 or U)
Quests: 40
4 [A Hero's Burden] (H)
2 [A Question of Gluttony] (Q)
3 [A Rare Bean] (R)
4 [Capture a Mine] (C)
4 [Dr. Boom!] (D)
4 [For Great Honor] (F)
3 [Mystery Goo] (M)
4 [The Fel and the Furious] (V - for Vin Diesel obv.)
4 [Tirion's Gambit] (T)
4 [Uncatalogued Species] (S)
4 [Under the Shadow] (W)
The notations to the right of each card are the letters used for tracking.
The premise of the deck is relatively simple: Get [Unending Breath] and a mount into play and cycle through the deck as much as possible to reveal [Krazal the Eggregator] as many times as possible. Since [Unending Breath] reveals the next card once the effect of the previous card goes on the chain, it is possible to complete multiple Quests and have their effects on the chain awaiting resolution. On a standard draw, you may have 5-10 Quests on the chain, but we've probably chained upwards of 15 Quests at times.
Without any type of tracking or notation, you can generally get 10-20 Spring Rabbit tokens into play. However, we found that tracking and arranging the cards that you put on the bottom of your deck allow you to reveal [Krazal the Eggregator] more effectively. [Krazal the Eggregator]'s effect triggers when he is revealed via [Unending Breath]'s effect; and again when he is subsequently revealed with a Quest effect. So, you want to arrange your cards to try to reveal [Krazal the Eggregator] with [Unending Breath] as much as possible. Additionally, tracking your cards allows you to pick up your other cards a lot more effectively; and avoid the potential disaster of hitting [Alexstrasza, The Life Binder] with [Dr. Boom!].
Tracking can be a time consuming process, so we've kept our references to one letter to save time. We also used graph paper to keep straight how many cards are revealed in certain situations. Most of the reveal quests show 3 cards at a time, but A Hero's Burden and Uncatalogued Species show 4; and Mystery Goo shows 5. Basically, the graph paper just helps to keep everything organized neatly. I generally wrote the order of the cards in a column. Once you go through the deck the first time, you can figure out when each Quest on the chain and in the deck will hit; and you can keep track of the order of Quests after that so as to best organize your cards. When necessary, you can intervene with Quests from the row. I like to move over to the next column once I have gone through the deck once.
On a side note, we've probably combo’d out at the end of an opponent's turn a little over half the time. However, it is highly conditional on what deck we played against and how they responded to the in-play cards. Against the disruptive decks like Mage, Shaman, and Rogue, we basically decided that it's best to combo out whenever you get a legitimate opening to do so. Also, we determined that 12 tokens is the magic number for a turn three combo. 12 tokens represent 41 points of damage on turn four: 12 for the base attack, 12 for the Assault 1 from a Tol'zin Stash, 12 for the flip, and 5 points from Alexstrasza's attack (in response to playing Alexstrasza, while she's still on the chain, you can flip Turane to destroy the tokens). Generally, we got far more than 12 tokens, but it's important from the perspective of how many copies of Krazal are in the the deck. With the full 4 copies, a turn three combo will net around 30-40 tokens. 3 copies nets around 20-30; and 2 copies is usually about 10-20 tokens. We never tried to combo out with only one Krazal in the deck, but I can only imagine that it's very difficult to do.
There is also the choice of what quests you will place in your row or how to best order your cards during the first draw through the deck. Here are some ideas that will not only increase token output, but make tracking a bit easier.
First, regarding the resource row, there is a basic hierarchy for placing resources: 1) Under the Shadow, 2) For Great Honor, 3) The Fel and the Furious, 4) Dr. Boom, 5) Capture a Mine, 6) Everything else. The idea is that you want quests in your row that can grab the greatest variety of cards. [Under the Shadow] is the best because it can grab any of your mounts or your win conditions (Alexstrasza or Tol’zin) while still revealing multiple cards. For Great Honor can’t get mounts, but still gets win conditions and reveals cards. [Fel and the Furious] can obviously net you any card, but doesn’t reveal additional cards (rendering it effectively useless if Krazal is revealed). [Dr. Boom!] is slightly less useful than [Fel and the Furious] since you don’t want to Boom an Alexstrasza into your hand. [Capture a Mine] has very limited utility, but can still get extra copies of [Mystery Goo] and [A Rare Bean] out of the way. After that, the quests are extremely limited in their benefit to the combo.
Second, on the subject of ordering cards for the first draw through, there are some basic ideas on the matter, but nothing conclusive. Testing revealed a scenario that occurred constantly which was named, “A Series of Four.” It means that if you can set up four completable quests in a row (i.e. not A Rare Bean or Mystery Goo), then you can rely on the fact that the last quest in that series will be completed. This is a pretty simple notion – since you won’t ever reveal more than four cards at once (assuming that you aren’t completing Mystery Goo when you combo out), then you will always land somewhere within that series of four quests.
(Credit for this system goes to Michael Barnes.)
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
B1 B2 B3 B4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 B5 B6
The B’s are blanks (non quest cards) and the Q’s are quests pre-set in the series of four. Assume that you have [Uncatalogued Species] on the chain for resolution. You can resolve [Uncatalogued Species] in any one of five spots of the clump of blanks:
1) Before B1;
2) On B1 or B2;
3) On B2 or B3;
4) On B3 or B4;
5) After B4.
In the case of 1, the quest resolves completely and you wind up at the beginning of the series of four. You complete Q1 through Q4 and resolve Q4 first. The same happens for 2, 3, and 4; except that you go one spot further into the series of four. Regardless, Q4 is completed and resolved in each case. Finally, in the case of 5, once Uncatalogued Species is completed, Q1 is revealed by Unending Breath; and you complete Q1 through Q4 and resolve Q4 first. What this all boils down to is that – assuming that you don’t brick out or your opponent somehow disrupts your combo – you will always complete the fourth quest in a series of four or more.
That last part is kind of important in that additional quests in the series give you insurance in combo’ing out. Since you don’t know where you’ll land within the series when you combo out, you can’t place the quests above, “in limbo” (e.g. a quest still in the deck that will be added to the chain at some future point, but will not be immediately completed) since there’s no assurance that you’ll complete them on the second run through. So, a series of more than four gives you some additional insurance cards to place in limbo. Mind you, even if you only have a series of four, you can still track pretty safely since most of the cards in the deck will be quests. Additionally, you could probably place the third quest in a series of four in limbo without too much worry. While there’s a chance that you could wind up on the last quest in the series, it’s only about a 5% chance.
You’re probably thinking right now that four quests in a row is a pretty hefty task. Even when the deck is stacked with quests, it’s very difficult to set up four in a row. The difficulty meant that the system should be changed and it ended up being a series of three instead. Like I said in the preceding paragraph, there’s about a 95% chance that the third quest in a series will be live; and you can even eliminate the 5% failure rate with a draw or reveal three quest in your resource row. The drawback of a series of three is that you can’t reliably place any of the first two quests in the series in limbo, so you are pretty much relying on whatever you reveal from your deck to do your tracking. However, it should still be worthwhile, as it could greatly increase your hit percentage and speed during your second time through the deck.
When this system was designed it was tested four times. Series of three were set up in three of the draws (placing all of the quests revealed on the bottom for the first reveal and on the top for the second reveal) and a series of four for one of the draws. In all four cases, I managed to track the second time through the deck perfectly. This was invaluable during the fourth test draw; where two copies of Krazal were in hand and no ready resources (due to having to complete A Rare Bean to find Unending Breath). I was able to track the entire process and generate 18 tokens. More importantly, the process only took about 12 minutes from start to finish (which included announcing every play as I would have to in a match and tracking the score). Even moving at a fairly slow pace, I was able to complete all four runs through the deck in less than 15 minutes each.
The bottom line of all this is that, if you are able to set up three completable quests in a row, you should be able to track your second run through the deck based on the last quest in the series. This is REALLY nice; as you no longer have to guess what order you should place the cards in.
One last quick note: when setting up your series, you generally want to put reveal quests on the bottom (i.e. you want them to resolve first). This gives you a bit more breathing room for setting up your tracking. This is the point most people mess up and it’s a bit confusing, so let me give a quick example. On a test draw, [Unending Breath], [Unending Breath], and [For Great Honor] where revealed on the first reveal (setting them on the bottom in that order). On the second reveal,there was [Dr. Boom!], [Tirion's Gambit], and a mount. You might be tempted to order the cards so that you draw the mount with [Dr. Boom]. However, if you do that, then you basically force yourself to have a reveal quest on the next series of cards that were revealed. As it happened, I revealed [Mystery Goo] (which I didn't have the resources to complete), another mount, and [Fel and the Furious]. So, if I had set [Dr. Boom!] above the mount, there's no way that I could order the cards to prevent getting stuck:
[Unending Breath]
[Unending Breath]
[For Great Honor] (quest 1 in the series)
[Tirion's Gambit] (quest 2 in the series)
[Dr. Boom!] (quest 3 in the series)
Mount (drawn by Dr. Boom)
[Fel and the Furious]
Mount (drawn by Fel and the Furious)
[Mystery Goo] (stuck)
On the other hand, if I place Tirion's Gambit above the mount:
[Unending Breath]
[Unending Breath]
[For Great Honor] (quest 1 in the series)
[Dr. Boom!] (quest 2 in the series)
[Tirion's Gambit] (quest 3 in the series)
Mount (revealed by Tirion's Gambit)
Mount (revealed by Tirion's Gambit)
[Mystery Goo] (revealed by Tirion's Gambit)
[Fel and the Furious]
I now have an open ended quest at the end of the chain. I can add other revealed quests to the chain; or set up a draw for one of the cards that is next revealed. This doesn't guarantee that I still won't somehow get stuck, but it increases my chances of avoiding it.
Mind you, ordering the quests in this manner is only relevant when you are setting up your series for the second run through the deck. Once you know how the cards are going to precisely fall, then you can order them in the best manner to reveal Krazal and draw the blanks out of the deck.
I hope this guide helps players understand the deck more thoroughly. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at tim@dailymetagame.com. If I can’t answer them I will forward them on to the TAWC guys.
-Timriv
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