Forward
This article follows the progression of my core-set-only Core Epic Humans deck. I start by explaining how I created the experimental, untested deck (in preparation for the core only alpha for Epic Card Game Digital). Then, I plan on updating this article with an analysis of how the deck performs, in addition to explaining any changes I make to it (assuming it performs well enough to update).
Other decks in this Epic Card Game Digital series include: Core Incremental Targeted Removal, Core Evil Tokens, Core Sage Army, and Core Wild Champion Overload. They are all built following my Epic Constructed Process.
This bonus deck is the most interesting one in the series, and I’ve been looking forward to writing about this one the most.
(Extra 5 decks: Core Token Control, Core Sky Force, Core Feint, Tom’S Core Discard Deck, and Tom’S Core Aggressive Burn List)
Current Deck List
As I update the deck list, I’ll update this picture and written list (currently + Board Clears deck list).
*Picture not updated to reflect the -1 Angel of Mercy +1 Divine Judgement change
Evil (12)
Slow ()
Fast (8)
3x Apocalypse
3x Final Task
2x Plague
0-Cost (4)
1x Guilt Demon
3x Wither
Good (36)
Slow (9)
3x Lord of the Arena
3x Palace Guard
3x White Knight
Fast (15)
3x Angel of Light
2x* Angel of Mercy
3x Angelic Protector
1x* Divine Judgement
3x Noble Unicorn
3x Resurrection
0-Cost (12)
3x Brave Squire
3x Faithful Pegasus
3x Priest of Kalnor
3x White Dragon
Sage ()
Slow ()
Fast ()
0-Cost ()
Wild (12)
Slow (3)
3x Kong
Fast (5)
2x Pyromancer
3x Surprise Attack
0-Cost (4)
2x Flash Fire
2x Lash
Prototype Explanation
Deck Idea
I wanted to make a core-only, 33+ Good deck, since my first Good deck, Incremental Targeted Removal, currently only has 27 Good cards. White Knight is also one of my favorite cards.
Gather Cards
My biggest problem with core-only, Good-focused decks is a lot of the 0-cost cards are too bad or too situational. This makes it hard to find at least 11 I actively want to include, and 0-cost cards are so important in Epic. Courageous Soul pretty much only wants to be in token/wide decks. Faithful Pegasus only wants to be in decks with worthwhile human champions. Priest of Kalnor has been underwhelming every time I’ve used it. Priestess of Angeline is fine in decks with enough Good 1-cost cards, but pretty bad outside of that. Rally the People is one of the worst cards in the game.
Watchful Gargoyle is okay, but I’m rarely excited to include it. White Dragon is one of my favorite cards, but it works best after playing 1-cost events like Banishment or Divine Judgement, as opposed to potentially overextending after playing a champion into an opponent’s board clear. Brave Squire has been great for me, but it usually isn’t what I’m looking for in my 0’s for constructed.
Due to my distaste for Good 0-cost cards, I started there to 
see what I could salvage. White Dragon was an auto-include. Priestess of Angeline is fine for Good-focused decks. Brave Squire is one of the most powerful of these, even if I don’t really want it. And finally, I decided on Faithful Pegasus so I knew I would be making a human deck. Thankfully, a few of my favorite Good Cards are humans. (Watchful Gargoyle was another possibility to replace any of these if desired.)
As a Good human deck, White Knight was an obvious auto include: 9/9 Tribute -> Draw a card, blitz, human champion (with a usually irrelevant expend ability). Palace Guard was another easy include. Same with Noble Unicorn as it is one of the best Good cards in the game. I like Angel of Mercy with core-set only’s reduced access to discard pile removal. Lord of the Arena was probably going to show up in some amount, as was Angel of Light. This is basically what my gather cards list looked like:
Evil ()
Slow ()
Fast ()
Drain Essence, Final Task
0-Cost ()
Dark Knight, Guilt Demon, Wither
Good ()
Slow ()
Avenging Angel, Gold Dragon, High King, Lord of the Arena, The People’s Champion
Fast ()
Angel of Light, Angelic Protector, Banishment, Feint, Resurrection
0-Cost ()
Priest of Kalnor, Watchful Gargoyle
Sage ()
Slow ()
Frost Giant, Djinn of the Sands, Winter Fairy
Fast ()
Ancient Chant, Erase
0-Cost ()
Amnesia, Forcemage Apprentice, Hasty Retreat
Wild ()
Slow ()
Kong, Rampaging Wurm, Sea Hydra, Triceratops
Fast ()
Flame Strike, Lightning Storm, Lurking Giant, Surprise Attack
0-Cost ()
Fireball, Flash Fire, Lash, Rage
Distributions
Two other weaknesses of Good-focused decks are their complete lack of 0-cost answers to Muse/Thought Plucker, and their complete lack of discard pile removal. (They do have access to the most banish effects to make up for the latter, but Sage’s transform effects are close to as strong or even better in many situations.) Since I’ve had a vendetta against Muse ever since it played a large role in my defeat at Origins in the finals, I started by including answers to that.
I believe Forcemage Apprentice is the best answer to Muse/Thought Plucker in the core set, hence why it made it into so many of these digital alpha decks. (It’s also a human that can ride Faithful Pegasus and shoot from its back for some quality bm [bad manners/gloating].) At this point though, I wasn’t sure which of Fireball, Flash Fire, or Wither I wanted to include in addition. I eventually ruled out Wither because the only 1-cost cards I even sort of wanted were Drain Essence (not needed if I stuck with Priestess of Angeline and Angel of Light) and Final Task. This meant I had to choose some 1-cost Wild cards.
Kong (big champion that breaks other champions) and Surprise Attack (solid card) were 6 easy additions which made room for either 3 Fireballs or 3 Flash Fires. From this point I had about 36 guaranteed cards, 18 of which could fairly reliable draw cards. I needed: 12 more 1-cost Good cards (probably Lord of the Arena and Angel of Lights), 6 1-cost Sage cards, and an additional 6 cards.
After deciding to go ahead and add the Lord of the Arenas and Angel of Lights, I saw that I was low on defensive options and card draw. To help with defense, I figured I would try adding in The People’s Champion. It’s an 8/7 human (Faithful Pegasus) that can chump block Sea Titans practically indefinitely. While I haven’t played it much, others have said it worked great for them while playing my original Combative Humans deck. Angelic Protector was my other addition as an ambush, airborne threat. At this point, I needed to add a lot of card draw.
Naturally, I fell back on my go to, Ancient Chant. Winter Fairy was another card I added because I am a big fan of it. I view it essentially as an on-turn draw 2 that my opponent will probably spend a 0-cost card to answer. +1 card in hand for me and -1 card in hand for my opponent. Further, if my opponent doesn’t have one of those specific cards (Wither/Unquenchable Thirst/Fireball), Winter Fairy can draw more cards or draw out other more valuable resources, like my opponent’s gold. Also, unlike Thought Plucker, it doesn’t enable my opponent to bypass the -1 card (Thought Plucker‘s forced discard) by discarding a Soul Hunter, Ally -> Recall card, Ancient Chant, etc. Winter Fairy can be bounced or banished though, which isn’t great for me, but not necessarily terrible either.
In order to get a bit more access to card draw, I decided to go with Flash Fire over Fireball. At this point, I found myself, once again, fairly weak to bounce effects. Therefore, I decided to try out Pyromancer because the more I thought about it, the more I liked it in this deck. Ambush 5/7 that deals 4 damage, nice against bounce. Also, it’s a human so it can even ride Faithful Pegasus, and it can finish off an opponent with its activated ability. Finally, I threw in a single Sea Hydra for a bit more draw and 2 Lashes for the breakthough and the ability to recall.
Distributions Breakdown
Below are the break downs for each of my distributions based on my Epic Constructed Process article.
30+ Cards that can Draw/Recycle/Recall/Etc. (32)
Reliable (28): 3 White Knight, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Faithful Pegasus, 3 Priestess of Angeline, 3 White Dragon, 3 Winter Fairy, 3 Ancient Chant, 1 Sea Hydra, 3 Surprise Attack, 3 Flash Fire,
Unreliable (8 x 1/2 = 4): 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Pyromancer, 2 Lash
20 0-cost Cards (20)
3 Brave Squire, 3 Faithful Pegasus, 3 Priestess of Angeline, 3 White Dragon, 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 3 Flash Fire, 2 Lash
20- On My Turn Cards (19)
Champions (19): 3 Lord of the Arena, 3 Palace Guard, 3 The People’s Champion, 3 White Knight, 3 Winter Fairy, 3 Kong, 1 Sea Hydra
Events (0):
33+ Primary Alignment Cards (36)
3 Lord of the Arena, 3 Palace Guard, 3 The People’s Champion, 3 White Knight, 3 Angel of Light, 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Angelic Protector, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Brave Squire, 3 Faithful Pegasus, 3 Priestess of Angeline, 3 White Dragon
3-9+ On-Turn Gold-Punishers (6)
3 Lord of the Arena, 3 White Knight
3-9+ Off-Turn Gold-Punishers (18)
3 Angel of Light, 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Angelic Protector, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Pyromancer, 3 Surprise Attack
Angelic Protector is also one of the few cards I’m comfortable playing on my opponent’s turn while their gold is up.
1+ Mass Discard Pile Banish (0)
Due to the lack of in-alignment mass discard pile banishment in Good and my greater desire for other 0-cost cards in other alignments, this deck has no mass discard pile banishment. Palace Guard is my only way to deal with Soul Hunter or Cave Troll. Ancient Chant is my only way to brick way Psionic Assault. Unrelenting pressure is my only way to prevent my opponent from spamming Inner Peace. I can’t permanently lock out my opponent from decking themselves, but if this deck can’t win before the game reaches that point, it probably wouldn’t win even if it had Amnesia(s).
3 Drain Essences or Comparable Health Gain (7)
Reliable (3): 3 Angel of Light, 3 Priestess of Angeline
Unreliable (3 x 1/3 = 1): 3 Angel of Mercy
3-9+ Muse/Thought Plucker 0-Cost Answers (7)
Reliable (5): 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 3 Flash Fire
Unreliable (2 x 1/2 = 1): 2 Lash
Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan
Pyromancer against bounce. Faithful Pegasus lets my humans fly over Sea Titan. The People’s Champion stonewalls an attacking Sea Titan. Brave Squire, Lash, and Flash Fire can also help me break a Sea Titan in combat. (Attack with 13/9 unbreakable Lord of the Arena. After damage, finish off Sea Titan with non-targeting Flash Fire.)
Thoughts/Concerns
I dislike having absolutely no way to interact with my opponent’s discard pile. Bounce is still incredibly worrisome since I only have 3 Pyromancers to counter it and very few aggressive 0-cost champions. I am also relying almost exclusively on Kong and Palace Guard to get me back into a game where I fell behind (probably from my opponent playing Sea Titan). My biggest concern is definitely my ability to draw throughout the game, particularly against mass banish/transform effects.
The deck runes a total of 14 events. 9 of my 28 “reliable” card draws come from 0-cost recycle champions. In addition, I hedge my draw with 2 Lashes and 3 Angels of Mercy that rely on specific cards not being banished from my discard pile. If my opponent’s removal is primarily banish/transform based, very few of my cards will hit my discard pile. Divine Judgement/Inheritance of the Meek and Wave of Transformation could clear my board and prevent me from being able to ever recycle with 9 of my cards. This could quickly spiral me into a situation where my Priestess of Angelines, Faithful Pegasuses (pegai?, pegasi?), and White Dragons either remain stranded in my hand or lead to me eventually running myself out of cards. Further, if my opponent is able to banish what few cards make it into my discard pile, gg. After completing this deck, this concern nagged at me incessantly until I revisited it and updated it. I love the revised version, in theory.
Deck List
Evil ()
Slow ()
Fast ()
0-Cost ()
Good (36)
Slow (12)
3x Lord of the Arena
3x Palace Guard
3x The People’s Champion
3x White Knight
Fast (12)
3x Angel of Light
3x Angel of Mercy
3x Angelic Protector
3x Noble Unicorn
0-Cost (12)
3x Brave Squire
3x Faithful Pegasus
3x Priestess of Angeline
3x White Dragon
Sage (9)
Slow (3)
3x Winter Fairy
Fast (3)
3x Ancient Chant
0-Cost (3)
3x Forcemage Apprentice
Wild (15)
Fast (6)
3x Pyromancer
3x Surprise Attack
0-Cost (5)
3x Flash Fire
2x Lash
Eventful Champions Changes
Reason for Change/Change Idea
I felt the deck could easily crumble to specific versions of control that relied on mass banish effects. Essentially, they could continuously prevent me from recycling which would cause my deck to fold in on itself. Since I build these type of decks to crush control decks (generally the strongest decks in the Epic meta so far), this was unacceptable.
To address this, I wanted to decrease my 0-cost Tribute -> Recycle count while introducing more events as well, without decreasing my ability to continuously put champions in play. The 4 cards I wanted to work in/focus on to achieve this were: Resurrection, Final Task, Surprise Attack (already in deck), and Priest of Kalnor.
The complete additions were (+6 Evil, +6 Good, +3 Wild): +3 Final Task, +1 Drain Essence, +2 Wither, +3 Resurrection, +3 Priest of Kalnor, +2 Sea Hydra, +1 Lash
The complete subtractions were (- 6 Good, -9 Sage): -3 The People’s Champion, -3 Priestess of Angeline, -3 Winter Fairy, -3 Ancient Chant, -3 Forcemage Apprentice
The primary idea behind Surprise Attack, Resurrection, Final Task is that they all put a champion into play while putting a card into my discard pile as well. While Resurrection and Final Task can be turned off if all my champions are banished, unlike actual champions, they can at least still draw 2 instead. While this makes it less reliable that I’ll have access to the champions I might want in a specific moment (or potentially more likely in certain match ups), it gives my Faithful Pegasi and White Dragons recycle fodder so I can keep churning them out.
In Defense of Surprise Attack
Unlike guest blogger Tom Dixon and his post Tempus Fugit, I am a big fan of Surprise Attack, but we evaluate the card in opposite ways. Dixon focuses on the ceiling value (best case scenario) of ambushing in powerful champions for devastatingly powerful plays, I focus on the floor value (worst acceptable-case scenario) of using a Surprise Attack to either play a champion that already has ambush or a slow champion on my turn.
Best Case Scenario
Unquestionably, the best way to play Surprise Attack is to ambush in a powerful slow champion like Angel of Death, Dark Assassin, Necromancer Lord, Frost Giant, Sea Titan, Raging T-Rex, etc. It can even make largely unplayable slow champions much more desirable: Trihorror, Thundarus, Burrowing Wurm, etc. All of these champions are then able to attack or expend immediately on your next turn, decreasing your opponent’s opportunity to remove them effectively.
Worst Acceptable-Case Scenario
Play a Surprise Attack before playing an ambush champion, or play a Surprise Attack outside of combat on your turn. In both scenarios, Surprise Attack does not enable you to play a champion you couldn’t have already played. Instead, Surprise Attack just draws a card to replace itself, and enters your discard pile as the champion you would have just played anyway enters play. This is better than you think for a few reasons.
- It’s possible you drew a champion that you would rather play from Surprise Attack and you put that champion into play instead.
- You now have an extra card in your discard pile that you can recycle or return to hand later.
- For purposes of drawing the specific cards you want, your deck is essentially only 57 cards big. This is the case because playing Surprise Attack doesn’t impact how your deck performs in too practical of a way, and it immediately replaces itself when played.
Surprise Attack can even be used with Memory Spirit to essentially make it a 5/4 airborne, ambush, Tribute -> Draw a card: Play Surprise Attack, draw a card, put Memory Spirit into play, return Surprise Attack to hand. It can also trigger Wild Loyalty triggers when you put a non-Wild champion into play (doing this would not also trigger ally triggers of that champion’s alignment), and it can help with Wild Loyalty triggers too.
True Worst Case Scenario
You have 1 or more Surprise Attacks in hand and no 1-cost champions in hand, and you don’t draw a 1-cost champion when you play Surprise Attack. This situation is absolutely terrible.
Caveats
Due to how highly I value the worst acceptable-case scenario, Surprise Attack is frequently the first Wild card I include when I need 1-cost cards to offset my Wild 0-cost cards. Essentially, it helps enable me to bring those 0-cost Wild cards while not disrupting what the deck is already trying to do. That being said, Surprise Attack does not fit in every deck. If a deck has very few champions, the True Worst Case Scenario becomes a lot more likely, and that is bad.
In addition, if you don’t have any champions that can work with it for the best case scenario it becomes a lot less desirable; however, I never want to include slow champions in my deck that I wouldn’t want to play without Surprise Attack. For example, I would be more than happy to play Kong or Palace Guard with my gold on my turn, but I wouldn’t want to play Trihorror, Thundarus, or Burrowing Wurm on my turn. (This doesn’t mean that I’ll never actually make a deck that has 
these champions though.)
Finally, I wouldn’t include Surprise Attacks in a deck that didn’t want specific Wild 0-cost cards. This generally isn’t a problem though since Wild’s 0-cost cards are generally pretty strong. Fireball, Flash Fire, Rage, and Lash are frequently cards I consider for decks (particularly Fireball to break Muses).
End In Defense of Surprise Attack
Final Task is the final link in the Surprise Attack, Resurrection, Final Task trifecta, and this deck can exploit it like a pro. At the end of the turn, Final Task tries to break the champion that it returned to play, if that champion is unbreakable, Final Task can’t break it, so that champion will stay in play permanently (until it is removed by a different effect of course).
Therefore, champions like Angelic Protector and Lord of the Arena will stay in play permanently due to their Tribute -> Gain/Give unbreakable until end of turn abilities. In addition, I run 3 Brave Squire and 3 Priest of Kalnor which can give any 1-cost champion I return unbreakable for the turn (in addition to blitz). Final Task Kong on turn, break an opponent’s champion, throw a Lash on it for good measure, then give it untargetable and unbreakable this turn, and attack for 17 blitz, breakthrough, unbreakable, untargetable damage.
In addition to making Final Task stronger, my unbreakable granting effects (Brave Squire, Priest of Kalnor, and Angelic Protector) also make Sea Hydra a lot stronger.
For example, I play Sea Hydra on the first turn of the game (5 cards in my hand). My opponent plays and attacks with Rampaging Wurm on their turn. I play Angelic Protector targeting Sea Hydra, then I throw Sea Hydra in front of the Wurm (4 cards in my hand). The Wurm deals 14 damage to Sea Hydra, but it doesn’t break because it is unbreakable. At the end of the turn, it gains 14 +1/+1 counters. Next turn (5 cards in my hand), I Lash Sea Hydra and play Priest of Kalnor targeting Sea Hydra (3 cards in my hand). I attack with a 23/23 breakthrough, unbreakable, untargetable champion. My opponent has only 1 of 2 answers in core-set Epic for this situation and plays Inheritance of the Meek (4 cards in my hand). I respond by playing White Knight, drawing a card and attacking (4 cards in my hand). That would be fun.
New Distributions Breakdown
Below are the break downs for each of my distributions based on my Epic Constructed Process article.
30+ Cards that can Draw/Recycle/Recall/Etc. (31.5)
Reliable (27): 3 Final Task, 3 White Knight, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Resurrection, 3 Faithful Pegasus, 3 White Dragon, 3 Sea Hydra, 3 Surprise Attack, 3 Flash Fire,
Unreliable (9 x 1/2 = 4.5): 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Pyromancer, 3 Lash
20 0-cost Cards (20)
2 Wither, 3 Brave Squire, 3 Faithful Pegasus, 3 Priest of Kalnor, 3 White Dragon, 3 Flash Fire, 3 Lash
20- On My Turn Cards (15)
Champions (15): 3 Lord of the Arena, 3 Palace Guard, 3 White Knight, 3 Kong, 3 Sea Hydra
Events (0):
33+ Primary Alignment Cards (36)
3 Lord of the Arena, 3 Palace Guard, 3 Resurrection, 3 White Knight, 3 Angel of Light, 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Angelic Protector, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Brave Squire, 3 Faithful Pegasus, 3 Priest of Kalnor, 3 White Dragon
3-9+ On-Turn Gold-Punishers (9)
3 Final Task, 3 Lord of the Arena, 3 White Knight
3-9+ Off-Turn Gold-Punishers (24)
3 Final Task, 3 Angel of Light, 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Angelic Protector, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Resurrection, 3 Pyromancer, 3 Surprise Attack
1+ Mass Discard Pile Banish (0)
Same as above**
3 Drain Essences or Comparable Health Gain (8)
Reliable (7): 1 Drain Essence, 3 Angel of Light, 3 Priest of Kalnor
Unreliable (3 x 1/3 = 1): 3 Angel of Mercy
3-9+ Muse/Thought Plucker 0-Cost Answers (6.5)
Reliable (5): 2 Wither, 3 Flash Fire
Unreliable (3 x 1/2 = 1.5): 3 Lash
Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan
Same as above except Priest of Kalnor can also protect my champions from targeted bounce (or other removal) effects.
Thoughts/Concerns
I am still a bit worried about bounce effects as I don’t have too many ways to punish them. I’m not too upset if my Kongs or Palace Guards get bounced though. Mass banish/transform could still lessen the effectiveness of the deck, but at least it doesn’t outright crush it now.
My biggest concern is that I might not have enough ways to come back from behind, since I currently only really have Kong and Palace Guard. It might be correct to replace my Drain Essence with a Plague/Apocalypse. Adding Sea Titan in might be correct as well. I’m also not sold on Lash over Rage. I went with Lash because I think I’ll reliably want the breakthrough effect in multiple instances of each game, and I would rather have the card draw effect (recall as opposed to Rage‘s “or draw 2”) return a card that can give me breakthrough than trade a card that can give me breakthrough for 2 cards that can’t.
This is by far the deck I am most looking forward to playing. I love the janky unbreakable shenanigans, and they might work out, we’ll see. If nothing else, I look forward to players once again learning to fear my Lords of the Arena.
Deck List
Evil (6)
Slow ()
Fast (4)
1x Drain Essence
3x Final Task
0-Cost (2)
2x Wither
Good (36)
Slow (9)
3x Lord of the Arena
3x Palace Guard
3x White Knight
Fast (15)
3x Angel of Light
3x Angel of Mercy
3x Angelic Protector
3x Noble Unicorn
3x Resurrection
0-Cost (12)
3x Brave Squire
3x Faithful Pegasus
3x Priest of Kalnor
3x White Dragon
Sage ()
Slow ()
Fast ()
0-Cost ()
Wild (18)
Fast (6)
3x Pyromancer
3x Surprise Attack
0-Cost (6)
3x Flash Fire
3x Lash
+ Board Clears Changes
Reason for Change/Change Idea
While the deck is able to create and maintain a lead better than most decks, multiple sequential turns of Kong and Sea Titan (especially with Surprise Attack) are able to get so far ahead against the deck that it can’t come back. This can also occur against decks with a lot of huge Wild champions. Even though I can drive these opponents out of cards by forcing them to keep playing non-drawing cards to survive, I can’t beat those cards after they hit a critical mass on the board. To address this, I am stealing the Apocalypse + Plague package from my wildly successful Core Sky Force deck. I’ve done a bit of testing with this package, and while I haven’t needed to board clear yet, at minimum, the board clear package hasn’t disrupted the deck significantly. Plague to clear out Thought Pluckers has been nice though.
The complete additions were (+7 Evil): +3 Apocalypse, +2 Plague, +1 Wither, +1 Guilt Demon
The complete subtractions were (-1 Evil, – 6 Wild): -1 Drain Essence, -3 Sea Hydra, -1 Pyromancer, -1 Flash Fire, -1 Lash
Sea Hydra had been consistently underperforming my expectations. It isn’t a big enough threat by itself, the 1 Gold: recall is too slow, I haven’t had a single big unbreakable turn with it yet, and other cards in the deck do basically the same thing it does but better.
Drain Essence hasn’t been necessary in any of my games as Angel of Light + Priest of Kalnor have kept me healthy enough while my Good core has either outraced my opponents or kept them consistently on the back foot, except for a few extreme cases which these changes are meant to address.
Pyromancer has surprised me with just how much I like it. Ambush really is that big a deal, so is the 4 damage. Lash has also been great, and it is definitely correct over Rage for this deck. It helps deal with Pluckers and I have spent my gold to recall it on multiple occasions. That being said, Surprise Attack and Kong are more powerful so I had to cut 1 Pyromancer to fit in the board clear package. I also went down to 2 Lash and 2 Flash Fire because both are great in different roles. I don’t want to decrease my Muse answers because Muse can easily negate a significant amount of the pressure this deck applies if unanswered. Immediately answering Muse can also devastate decks that rely on it for its incredibly high raw power.
New Distributions Breakdown
Below are the break downs for each of my distributions based on my Epic Constructed Process article.
30+ Cards that can Draw/Recycle/Recall/Etc. (31.5)
Reliable (28): 3 Apocalypse, 2 Plague, 3 Final Task, 3 White Knight, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Resurrection, 3 Faithful Pegasus, 3 White Dragon, 3 Surprise Attack, 2 Flash Fire
Unreliable (7 x 1/2 = 3.5): 3 Angel of Mercy, 2 Pyromancer, 2 Lash
20 0-cost Cards (20)
1 Guilt Demon, 3 Wither, 3 Brave Squire, 3 Faithful Pegasus, 3 Priest of Kalnor, 3 White Dragon, 2 Flash Fire, 2 Lash
20- On My Turn Cards (12)
Champions (15): 3 Lord of the Arena, 3 Palace Guard, 3 White Knight, 3 Kong
Events (0):
33+ Primary Alignment Cards (36)
3 Lord of the Arena, 3 Palace Guard, 3 Resurrection, 3 White Knight, 3 Angel of Light, 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Angelic Protector, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Brave Squire, 3 Faithful Pegasus, 3 Priest of Kalnor, 3 White Dragon
3-9+ On-Turn Gold-Punishers (9)
3 Final Task, 3 Lord of the Arena, 3 White Knight
3-9+ Off-Turn Gold-Punishers (24)
3 Final Task, 3 Angel of Light, 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Angelic Protector, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Resurrection, 2 Pyromancer, 3 Surprise Attack
1+ Mass Discard Pile Banish (0)
Same as above**
3 Drain Essences or Comparable Health Gain (7)
Reliable (6): 3 Angel of Light, 3 Priest of Kalnor
Unreliable (3 x 1/3 = 1): 3 Angel of Mercy
3-9+ Muse/Thought Plucker 0-Cost Answers (6)
Reliable (5): 3 Wither, 2 Flash Fire
Unreliable (2 x 1/2 = 1): 2 Lash
Honorable Mentions: 2 Plague, 2 Pyromancer
Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan
In addition to everything above, 3 Apocalypse and 2 Plague allow me to clear out Sea Titans when I fall significantly far behind.
Thoughts/Concerns
As mentioned above, Sea Hydra underperformed for me, but Priest of Kalnor, Brave Squire, Pyromancer, and even Faithful Pegasus have overperformed. While I don’t think I’ve sent in a Lashed unbreakable untargetable champion yet, I have secured wins and big advantages with the Priest.
My favorite Priest play was against an opponent who turn 1 Fire Shaman Lightning Stormed my faced. After attacking with my ambushed in Noble Unicorn on my turn, I threw down White Knight with loyalty, immediately Priest of Kalnored it, and attacked. My opponent then proceeded to Erase my expended Unicorn since my White Knight was untouchable. The 4 health was also quite nice. I like this card.
Playing with Brave Squire again has reminded me why I used to love it and value it so highly. It is great. In so many situations you are able to trade a 0-cost card in hand with either an opponent’s 1 cost or 0 cost champion in play, while also protecting the champion you targeted with it. The human is also a relevant chump blocker in multiple situations. I’ve even created super 14/5 unbreakable White Dragons to break Kongs (with the help of Lash). This is one of the cards that you really can only understand just how powerful it is by playing with it.
While Faithful Pegasus has done work transporting my Epic Humans like Lord of the Arena safely past potential chump blockers, even as just a 2/2 airborne, blitz, tribute -> recycle it has been solid. That little bit of hard to disrupt pressure can push me to that win, and the tribute -> recycle helps me get to the cards I need when I need them.
Finally, while not unexpected, the Noble Unicorn + White Knight draw engine + threats has been working quite well. Those continuous mid-range threats that let me apply pressure while digging into all of my best cards are great. Going second Noble Unicorn off-turn followed by White Knight on turn leaves you with a 6/6, a 9/9, and 7 cards in hand. It is straight up gross if your opponent has an evil champion in play you can break with White Knight.
Final Task + all of the unbreakable shenanigans (Lord of the Arena, Angelic Protector, Priest of Kalnor, and Brave Squire) has been quite fun as well. I plan on continuing to play with this deck as it is a lot of fun.
As a side note, I’m not sure if the 3 Final Task, 3 Apocalypse, 2 Plague distribution will be final. I love Final Task in the deck and it does work, but I might want that 3rd Plague. Or, I might swap the 3rd Apocalypse for the 3rd Plague, we’ll see.
Deck List
Evil (12)
Slow ()
Fast (8)
3x Apocalypse
3x Final Task
2x Plague
0-Cost (4)
1x Guilt Demon
3x Wither
Good (36)
Slow (9)
3x Lord of the Arena
3x Palace Guard
3x White Knight
Fast (15)
3x Angel of Light
3x Angel of Mercy
3x Angelic Protector
3x Noble Unicorn
3x Resurrection
0-Cost (12)
3x Brave Squire
3x Faithful Pegasus
3x Priest of Kalnor
3x White Dragon
Sage ()
Slow ()
Fast ()
0-Cost ()
Wild (12)
Slow (3)
3x Kong
Fast (5)
2x Pyromancer
3x Surprise Attack
0-Cost (4)
2x Flash Fire
2x Lash
-1 Angel of Mercy +1 Divine Judgement
After succumbing to the all 3 Angel of Mercy early draw, I’ve decided to be a bit less greedy. Therefore, I’m taking out 1 Angel of Mercy and replacing it with 1 Divine Judgement. Angel of Mercy is very strong, but it can be awful if you draw too many of them early, especially when playing against decks that have a lot of banish effects.
Conclusion
I really look forward to seeing how this deck plays. Feel free to discuss/ask any questions throughout the decks development. Always happy to provide answers (usually very long, detailed answers).
+ Board Clears
The deck has been performing well, and it is fun to play. Hopefully the additional board clears will make it even more resilient.
?
I’ve been having real trouble with running out of cards using this deck. Frequently things are gummed up with a bunch of Palace Guard, Lord of the Arena, Brave Squire etc. and nothing to even play off turn, let alone draw 2. I’m finding myself frequently leaving off turn gold unspent and quickly running out of gas.
What am I doing wrong?!
This deck does have a bit less draw than I like, and I have experienced running out of gas with it once or twice, but overall I don’t have that problem too often with this deck. Here is absolutely everything I do to try to prevent this from happening to me.
– Mulligan aggressively
= Almost always mulligan your cards that require you to have a discard pile to be worthwhile: Angel of Mercy, Faithful Pegasus, White Dragon, and Plague
= Keep no more than 1 slow, non-drawing champion: Lord of the Arena, Palace Guard, and Kong (usually mulligan LotA)
= Keep no more than 1 non-drawing, ambush champion: Angel of Light, Angelic Protector, and Pyromancer
= Mulligan Priest of Kalnor if you are low on card draw in hand
= Keep no more than 1 Brave Squire
= Keep at most 2 Wither
= Keep no more than 1 Lash and consider mulliganing it if you need more outright draw early
= The best cards in the deck are Noble Unicorn and White Knight, and they are the best cards to play on turn 1 when going first. If you draw some of these you can be a bit more lax with the above.
– Draw 2 aggressively
= Apocalypse and Plague should be used as draw 2s significantly more often than as break alls. Unless you absolutely need to break everything, use the draw 2 option early when you get an opportunity.
= If low on cards in hand, be careful what you use Resurrection on. Resurrecting a LotA, Angel of Mercy, Angel of Light, Angelic Protector, or Pyromancer generally is not worth it if this would bring you down to 4 or less cards in hand.
– Pass with your gold up
= On your turn, only spend your gold first on an empty board to play White Knight, Noble Unicorn, or a draw 2. If this means you pass on the first turn of the game, so be it. (Kong and Palace Guard can get you back into the game.)
= Once you have a Noble Unicorn in play, playing a LotA or Palace Guard, etc. while your opponent has their gold available can frequently be ideal. (Off-turn Noble Unicorn into on-turn White Knight is your best possible opening play.)
= If your opponent spends their gold first on your turn in such a way that you remain ahead on board, playing a draw 2 instead of another threat is often correct. Sure 13 LotA damage is nice, but if it drops you to 4 cards in hand, playing a draw 2 to go up to 6 probably would have been better. Being able to maintain consistent pressure is more important than big spikes of pressure.
– Recall Lash
= Lash is great. Recalling it can be better than playing another champion to the board in multiple situations.
– Don’t attack with non-airborne, non-Kong champions while your opponent has their gold available unless you have Brave Squire.
= If you attack into a Surprise Attacked blocker like Kong, the resource and tempo loss can be horrible. If this causes your opponent not to play their gold in order to prevent your attack, great. For example, play White Knight with loyalty 2 and pass without attacking. If they spend their gold on an 8/9 or smaller champion, attack. If they put an Evil champion in play, consider breaking it. If they put a 9/10 or bigger champion into play, be happy you didn’t attack. If they just go to turn without spending their gold, preventing you from being able to attack, be ecstatic.
Also, since this is one of my signature decks, there is a high probability that it will see play on May 20th. Feel free to ask any further questions/clarification before, during, and after.
As with all aggro decks, it’ll struggle in grindy games – it’s just not set up for them. It’s vulnerable to GY hate while having basically none of it’s own; It struggles with removing threats off turn; It doesn’t have many cards that generate natural value.
It’s got a lot of punish so plays well on the front foot, but if it loses initiative it’ll be rough going.
I wouldn’t consider this an aggro deck, and I would say it is pretty strong in long grindy games. I just played a game with it to refresh my memory, and I won where both of us were down to about 2 min remaining against a Sea Titan/Plucker/Muse deck that played 3 Drain Essences against me. I spent most of the game at around 7 cards in hand.
In this specific game I mulliganed 3 cards leaving myself with a Palace Guard and a Resurrection (mulled a 2nd Palace Guard and 2 other cards I don’t remember). My opponent went first and drew with first gold, I drew with my gold. Not having a White Knight or Noble Unicorn on my turn, I passed with 7 cards in hand and my opponent started their turn. The game proceeded from there fairly back and forth (it was a pretty good game). Throughout the game, my opponent played 2 Sea Titans (at least 1 with Surprise Attack off-turn), 1 or 2 Kongs, 3 Thought Pluckers, 2 or 3 Muses, 3 Drain Essences, 2 or 3 Erases, 1 Amnesia, 2 Soul Hunters, and a few other cards.
I played 2 Noble Unicorns, White Knight 2 or 3 times, 1 Palace Guard, Angelic Protector 3 or so times, 2 White Dragons, 2 Priest of Kalnor, 2 Faithful Pegasi (to chump block Sea Titans), 2 Apocalypses as board clears, 2 Plagues to break Pluckers off turn, 1 off-turn Angel of Light without Loyalty, 1 Lord of the Arena, and a smattering of my 0s. While the lack of discard pile removal does make the deck weaker in the ultra-late game, I would still say this deck is mid-range, although more on the aggressive side of midrange to be sure.
While it is true that this deck has almost no off-turn removal, it can usually establish its own threat during that time. This can even push the opponent into board clearing away their own Sea Titans to stop my airborne threats.
To get some video footage of me playing this deck, I plan on streaming a bit this Saturday and putting the videos up on youtube. Expect a full post on that Saturday stream later today. Let me know if there are specific times on Saturday that anyone would like me to stream, and I’ll see what I can do. Most likely, this will be another stream snipe stream session like my Dark Draft Stream Snipe session.
Game 2, I was able to shift from my long game plan in game 1 to a heavier aggro plan in game 2. I hovered around 4 cards in hand for most of the game. Played 0 White Knight, 1 or 2 Noble Unicorn (+1 with Resurrection), 1 or 2 Kong (+1 with Final Task), 1 or 2 Angelic Protector, 1 or 2 Apocalypses to draw, 1 Plague to draw, 1 Pyromancer (on turn) a smattering of 0s and a lot of turns where we both passed with our gold up.
My opponent was playing an Evil deck with Medusas, Ancient Chants, Thought Pluckers, Palace Guards, Apocalypses, and a smattering of 0’s like Guilt Demon.
While hovering at around 4 cards in hand, I used my gold-punish opportunities to land ambush champions, draw 2, and Final Task a blitzing Kong on different occasions.
That was me.
Good Game, those Noble Unicorns did work (as they frequently do), and Plague has been impressing me so much in Core-Only.
They did indeed! I’m new to Epic (saw it on Kickstarter) and have read all your stuff and it has really given me much needed help. I played Magic for years, but the cost became prohibitive. I’ve played with your humans deck and really like it. (even more now that I was destroyed by it!)
I also played a lot of Magic before getting into Epic, primarily draft because I didn’t want to spend the money to compete in constructed. One of the reasons I love Epic is that it has enabled me to actively follow and participate in a (constructed) competitive environment whereas this was largely barred to me before. Being able to track the meta progression and develop my playstyle to address it has been incredibly rewarding and fun.
Not only has this allowed me to improve dramatically at Epic, but I have also improved dramatically at other games as a result. It has also given me a subject to write an extensive amount about, detailing my ever-growing understanding of it.
My humans decks have always been favorites of mine, but I also have a few new Uprising legal decks that I’m looking forward to talking about; they seem pretty sick. (One of them is a toolbox deck that currently runs 12 3-ofs, 5 2-ofs, and 14 1-ofs. Another one currently runs 3 Fairy Tricksters.)
Game 3, the dream. Off-turn Unicorn, into on-turn White Knight + White Dragon, into off-turn Angel of Mercy bringing back Unicorn, into Lord of the Arena Lethal.
Game 6? Hit one of those completely dead draws. I drew triple Angel of Mercy (opponent played 2 or 3 Amnesias), drew double Lord of the Arena, 1 Pyromancer, 1 Angel of Light, 1? Noble Unicorn, 1 White Knight, double Wither, 1 Flash Fire as a draw 2, 1 Apocalypse as a draw 2, and a couple 0’s. My opponent was playing a Good deck with an unanswered Gold Dragon, with a couple Angelic Protectors, 1 White Knight, 1 Noble Unicorn, 2 or 3 Memory Spirits, an Angel of Mercy, 1 Ceasefire, and a few 0’s.
While my opponent did get down to 2 cards in hand, I had very few impactful plays and even fewer ways to draw. Even though I was at 4 or 5 cards to their 2, none of my cards were able to get me out from behind on the board, and I just got run over (or more precisely flown over). Game ended with my opponent at 112 or so health to my 12ish (conceded before time limit expired for opponent because I was clearly going to lose that game and there were no stakes).
My opponent played quite well, but my deck just did not show up that game. Sometimes you just get those draws. (Not as bad as game 2 in round 7 at Worlds where I drew almost nothing but non-drawing 0-cost cards, but worse than a game I won without playing/drawing a single 0-cost card.)