For this week’s Deck Clinic article, I’ve got a list sent to me from a Czech Republic reader named Petr. Here’s what Petr sent me:

Hello Sean,

I like your Deck Clinic series at DMG a lot so I decided to send you one of my deck lists. It’s one I am not quite satisfied with and I think you might be able to help me. It’s a Scourge Warrior/Warlock [Askalti Darksteel] Core deck. It’s supposed to be an aggressive build. I will try to explain the deck list card by card to help you understand why I think those cards can be useful. Here is the deck list:

HERO
[Askalti Darksteel]


ABILITIES: 15
4 [Embrace of the Nether]
4 [Fel Trade]
4 [The Promises of Darkness]
3 [Victimize]


ALLIES: 24
1 [Koltira Deathweaver]
1 [Orbaz Bloodbane]
4 [Overlord Drakuru]
2 [Phase Hound]
1 [Rhuunom]
3 [Sardok]
4 [Shade of Arugal]
1 [Sindragosa, the Frost Queen]
6 [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior]
1 [Plague Eruptor]


EQUIPMENT: 6
2 [Ring of Invincibility]
4 [Scimitar of the Sirocco]

QUESTS: 12
2 [All That Rises]
4 [Darkness Calling]
2 [Proving Grounds]
4 [A Question of Gluttony]


LOCATIONS: 3
3 [Eye of the Storm]



[Embrace of the Nether]  - It is the only removal I have. Even if this ability is pure card disadvantage I think it could be worth playing it, like with [Scimitar of the Sirocco] or [Shade of Arugal] (with another unlimited scourge ally on board ofc.). Its weakness lies in its lack of ability destruction. This is always in an 1:2 ratio.

[Fel Trade] - This ability  is what the deck is all about. The main combo is obvious. Attack with [Scimitar of the Sirocco] and a bunch of allies, then trade them for some sweet ferocious fatty. It can also find some crucial allies in a pinch [Rhuunom], [Plague Eruptor],  etc).

[The Promises of Darkness] - This card helps to get rid of some little allies as well finish off some big ones and can be discarded to [Embrace of the Nether].

[Victimize] - Increases card advantage and fits well in the curve.

[Koltira Deathweaver], [Orbaz Bloodbane], [Sindragosa, the Frost Queen] - These are the main finishers of the deck.

[Overlord Drakuru] - He should be a guy used for the dirty and hard work in the early turns. With 6 [Ymirheim Chosen Warriors] and one [Plague Eruptor], he should go for 4 every single game. It helps against most 2 drops (except mounts).

[Phase Hound] - I want something I can find when trading [Shade of Arugal]. It also helps against protectors. I feel that this pet can be changed to something else.

[Rhuunom] - He can eat [Devouring Plague], [Regrowth], [Everlasting Cold], and [Spell Suppression].

[Sardok] - It's the best Turn 1 drop I have found.

[Shade of Arugal] - This ally keeps the pressure up and also goes well with [Embrace of the Nether] and [Darkness Calling].

[Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] – [Overlord Drakuru]'s loyal guard. It's also food for [Fel Trade]

[Plague Eruptor] - It can be easily found with [Fel Trade]  to help against rush decks that you will face.

[Ring of Invincibility] - This can turn our finishers into nightmares.

[Scimitar of the Sirocco] - I think this one is obvious :).

[Quests - It's easy here: [A Question of Gluttony] and [Proving Grounds] to fill first turns, [Darkness Calling] to fill our hand and [All That Rises] to refill our deck.


The main goal of this deck is to hand in some big allies a little faster than they are expected. It should be done using [Fel Trade] or even [Shade of Arugal]'s own ability. The weakness of this deck could be the lack of small, fast allies. I wonder if I should rebuild it and try to use [Drain Will] + [Marauding Geist] for faster pressure. [Marauding Geist] is also an unlimited ally so it’s another card that can be traded for [Shade of Arugal]. I would appreciate any help. Maybe you will find some combos I didn’t. I hope my poor English didn’t bother you a lot as I am only an enthusiast from the Czech Republic.

--Petr

Right off the bat, Petr’s English is a lot better than my Slavic and his email went through a lot more detail than most lists I receive and I really appreciated that. Before I even sat down for a game, I knew what Petr wanted to do with the deck. He outlaid most of the interested interactions of the deck. I built it and tested a few games online.

The list did extremely well a couple of times and floundered in the other games. I always felt that I was lacking a solid end game plan. Petr mentions that the purpose of the deck is to be aggressive but a third of the allies are 1/5 protectors; I couldn’t see it. The games that I was able to win were simply via a war of attrition. [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] is a huge roadblock that allowed me to mitigate early damage and get me to the end game. The issue that I found with the deck was that against an aggressive strategy, the [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] come out too late. I too often have near fatal damage on my hero and then face the inevitable turn where I can [Fel Trade] my [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] for a [Sindragosa, the Frost Queen] but it's not enough. She can only kill one of the opposing allies and the rest rush past her and bash my hero. If I’m going to go through all that work of putting allies onto the field, finding and playing [Fel Trade], and sacrificing my entire team of allies, I want to win the game right there.

The games that I did win where all on the back of [Overlord Drakuru]. I was able to stick to Petr’s plan and play an [Overlord Drakuru] on Turn 2, follow it up with [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] on Turn 3, bash with [Overlord Drakuru] and then [Fel Trade] the [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior]s to fetch [Orbaz Bloodbane] or [Sindragosa, the Frost Queen] to pump it to huge proportions.

The other big issue I had with the list was the card draw. This deck is essentially a midrange combo deck relying on [Fel Trade] and keeping a fully hand with [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] but I found the draw to be largely inconsistent. [The Promises of Darkness] essentially acts as a painful quest in the build and [Victimize] nets you a fair share of card advantage, albeit late in the game. I knew that moving forward, I’d want to expand on the card draw even more so that I could improve the deck’s consistency.

I tested four or five different decks. When Petr sent me his original list, Twilight of the Dragons was not to be released for a few weeks but now that it’s in stores, I felt I should expand the card pool a bit. I poured over the spoilers and oddly enough, there really wasn’t much available to the deck in the new set. I toyed with the idea of adding in [Twilight Citadel] and then [Obsidian Drakonid] and [Obsidian Drudge] to give the deck the much needed ability and equipment removal. The idea is cute but really didn’t work in the deck. I know a lot of folks are clamoring over [Twilight Citadel] and I think it’s going to see a fair amount of play. It’s not like a [Broderick Langforth] that can essentially go into any build. That being said, [Twilight Citadel]’s really didn’t belong in a deck that’s main purpose is to sacrifice allies for their costs. I found my resources where better spent on completing quests then making 1/1's.

As I build decks, I like to try out new cards and switch factions a lot. If a deck works well with an Alliance hero, who’s to say that it couldn’t be better with a Horde hero (and vice versa). I wasn’t sold on [Askalti Darksteel]. Petr was trying to use her because she’s a Scourge Hero but there are others available to us; ones with many less restrictions. The best reason I could find for keeping [Askalti Darksteel] was [Scimitar of the Sirocco]. I didn’t think the restrictions on my deck building were worth the effect of [Scimitar of the Sirocco], so I began to look elsewhere . Here’s what I came up with for my list:

HERO: [Dalronn the Controller]

QUESTS: 15

    2 [All That Rises]

    3 [Darkness Calling]

    4 [A Question of Gluttony]

    4 [The Fel and the Furious]

    2 [The Restless Dead]

ALLIES: 26

    6 [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior]

    1 [Sardok]

    1 [Rhuunom]

    3 [Overlord Drakuru]

    2 [Terina Calin]

    2 [Obsidian Drakonid]

    3 [Mikael the Blunt]

    3 [Marundal the Kindred]

    3 [Hesriana]

    1 [Nefarian]

    1 [King Varian Wrynn]

EQUIPMENT: 4

  4 [Phylactery of the Nameless Lich]

ABILITIES:16

    3 [The Promises of Darkness]

    4 [Fel Trade]

    4 [Tuskarr Kite]

    2 [Victimize]

    3 [Suspended Curse]

I moved to [Dalronn the Controller] so that I could access the powerful [Phylactery of the Nameless Lich]. When your main strategy is to get [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] into play as quickly as possible, isn’t playing them for free pretty good? I thought so. [Phylactery of the Nameless Lich] also gave me more plays on my second turn besides [Overlord Darkuru], who also stayed in the deck as he hits hard and has a large enough health that he’s very often trading for 2 of your opponent’s early drops.

I changed Petr’s deck and made it focus more on the combo aspect of [Fel Trade]. Ideally you’d like to play a [Phylactery of the Nameless Lich] on Turn 2, play a [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] on Turn 3 and getting two of them into play, allowing you to [Fel Trade] on Turn 5 and leaving a [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] in play. Instead of getting a beefy Death Knight, you’ll search for [King Varian Wrynn] and usually be able to put the game far enough out of reach for your opponent. If you’re playing against a Warlock, I’ve included [Nefarian] as a [Fel Trade] target as getting [King Varian Wrynn] hit with [Hesriana] is really painful.

Speaking of [Hesriana], she was curiously absent from Petr’s build. I think that any deck that has access to her is probably going to want to play a few copies. I only ran 3 because of the search provided me by [Fel Trade]. I included Alliance allies to help against what I perceive to be large threats in the metagame. [Marundal the Kindred] has seen a resurgence of popularity as he’s great in dealing with troublesome Spirit Wolves and Spiders. He doesn’t play nicely with [Overlord Darkuru] but he does make your [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] all 3/3 protectors instead of 1/5s which is not to be underestimated. Suddenly your very slow 1/5 aren’t so slow. I can often slam in for a quick 6 or 9 damage all the while netting a free 3/3 with my [Phylactery of the Nameless Lich] at the end of the turn. Alliance favorite [Mikael the Blunt] was included to stymie an opponent’s quick start.

On the removal front, I ended up including [Obsidian Drakonid], [Terina Calin] (she may be better as [Obsidian Drudge] as I only have 4 equipment in the deck), and [Suspended Curse] in lieu of Petr’s choice of [Embrace of the Nether]. 2-for-1'ing yourself is never something I want to do so, though I’m not truly happy with my replacements if I can be honest. Hopefully we’ll get a reprint of [Banish to the Nether] in a future class starter for all those Warlock lovers out there.

One the quest front, I upped the amount of quests and included [The Restless Dead] as an additional shuffle quest. [All That Rises] played incredibly well when I was testing Petr’s build, allowing me to shuffle back those dead [Ymirheim Chosen Warrior] and search them out again. [The Restless Dead] did much the same thing but had the side benefit of hurting Spider Solitaire or any other deck relying on their graveyard. To also improve the draw of the deck, I included [Tuskarr Kite]. I heard somewhere that it’s a pretty good card if you like drawing cards so I’m trying it out in this build. Seriously though, Kite’s been a huge help in smoothing out my draw and making the deck more consistent.

Though I went toward the more “combo” aspect of the deck, I could also see going a more aggressive route as Petr suggested. I’m not a huge fan of [Marauding Geist] but it does have some synergy with [Drain Will] (though not much synergy with [Fel Trade]). How would you have built the deck? As always, I love to hear everyone else’s thoughts. Shoot me an email to aquestionofgluttony@gmail.com with your new Twilight of the Dragons lists. Until next time, happy brewing.

-Sean Batt