Category: Epic Card Game

Deck Idea

I wanted to make a deck that utilized both Ceasefire and Spike Trap. Ceasefire to make my opponent want to attack in groups, Spike Trap to punish them for attacking in groups.

Gather Cards

Ice Drake was the next logical progression for me because it can function as 3 more Ceasefires, to an extent. (I also hadn’t used Ice Drake yet in a Core-Only deck.) Committing to Ice Drake meant that I would need 33+ Sage cards to reliably activate its Loyalty 2 trigger.

In order to play to the disruptive strengths of Ceasefire, Ice Drake, Spike Trap, I decided to fill my deck with airborne threats. Theoretically, this would allow me to fly past my opponent’s champions while slowing down my opponent’s attacks on the ground. Therefore, I added literally all of the Core-Only, Sage, airborne champions to the deck: Blue Dragon, Djinn of the Sands, Memory Spirit, Muse, and Winter Fairy.

For non-Muse, non-Spike Trap 0-cost Sage cards, I wanted Forcemage Apprentices to break my opponent’s Muses, and I wanted Hasty Retreats for 0-cost disruption. Hasty Retreat is the only 0-cost card in Core-Only that can stop a blocked attacking champion that gets Lashed/Raged, it can also buy me just enough time to finish off my opponent with my airborne champions before they either kill me or out-value me.

To maintain my all airborne champions strategy, I added Avenging Angel, Gold Dragon, and Angel of Light. (With regard to Angel of Light, I included it with the expectation that I wouldn’t hit my Loyalty 2 on it often. For Core-Only, a 5/6 ambush, airborne, gain 5 health champion is worth it here.) Not only are these blitz or ambush airborne champions, but they all also gain me a bit of health when played (assuming I play the blitzers as on-turn gold-punishers and they aren’t Hasty Retreated). This can let me shrug off hits by my opponent while I push my damage through. Watchful Gargoyle is also a strong, 0-cost attack disruption card too.

As one of my favorite cards, an airborne champion, and some amount of discard pile banishment, I wanted to fit in Guilt Demon. Not seeing any 1-cost Evil cards I particularly wanted (since I had enough health gain already to not want Drain Essence), I decided to throw in 3 Apocalypses and 3 Plagues to see how they worked. I figured I could use them to reset the board after disrupting it for multiple turns and forcing my opponent to commit more champions to play.

At this point I was struggling a bit to find cards to fill out the rest of the spots in my deck. The only other Good 0-cost card that looked appealing was Brave Squire, so I threw it in. Erase seemed fine because my goal was to outrace my opponent so a strong tempo play that draws me cards seems strong. Transform theoretically fits surprisingly well in the deck because it can answer all but untargetable threats, it doesn’t send the target to the discard pile, and since all of my champions have airborne, the wolf left over can’t chump block. Time Bender as another tempo play filled the last slot. Ancient Chant was the only card I considered for this deck that didn’t get added.

Distributions

I naturally hit my distributions while building this deck with only cards I originally thought I might want.

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. (38)
Reliable (38): 3 Apocalypse, 3 Plague, 3 Ceasefire, 3 Erase, 3 Memory Spirit, 3 Blue Dragon, 3 Winter Fairy, 3 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Transform, 3 Watchful Gargoyle, 2 Spike Trap, 3 Hasty Retreat, 3 Muse
Unreliable (0 x 1/2 = 0):

20 0-cost Cards (20)
3 Guilt Demon, 3 Brave Squire, 3 Watchful Gargoyle, 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 3 Hasty Retreat, 3 Muse, 2 Spike Trap

20- On My Turn Cards (15)
Champions (19): 3 Avenging Angel, 3 Gold Dragon, 3 Blue Dragon, 3 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Winter Fairy
Events (0):

33+ Primary Alignment Cards (33)
3 Blue Dragon, 3 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Winter Fairy, 3 Erase, 3 Ice Drake, 3 Memory Spirit, 3 Transform, 1 Time Bender, 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 3 Hasty Retreat, 3 Muse, 2 Spike Trap

3-9+ On-Turn Gold-Punishers (9)
3 Avenging Angel, 3 Gold Dragon, 3 Djinn of the Sands

3-9+ Off-Turn Gold-Punishers (9)
3 Angel of Light, 3 Ice Drake, 3 Memory Spirit

1+ Mass Discard Pile Banish (0)
This deck is a fairly aggressive deck so if your opponent is able to deck out, you probably would have lost anyway. 3 Guilt Demon to provide some targeted removal though.

3 Drain Essences or Comparable Health Gain (9)
Reliable (9): 3 Avenging Angel, 3 Gold Dragon, 3 Angel of Light
Unreliable (0 x 1/3 = 0):

3-9+ Muse/Thought Plucker 0-Cost Answers (5.5)
Reliable (3): 3 Forcemage Apprentice
Unreliable (5 x 1/2 = 2.5): 3 Blue Dragon, 2 Spike Trap
Honorable Mention: 3 Plague

Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan
Fly over my opponent’s Sea Titans and board clear them if they are applying not much pressure.

Thoughts/Concerns

This deck has exceeded my expectations significantly. It has been a lot of fun going all out with this deck, constantly playing ambush/blitz champions, and pulling out a win as I drop to 1 or 2 cards in hand. The unrelenting pressure has just been too much for a lot of opposing decks. That being said, it can also fight a value game by focusing on my slow draw champions and gaining significant value out of Winter Fairy and Djinn of the Sands.

The Plague/Apocalypse package has been incredible as well. On the occasions where my opponent has been able to blunt my pressure with high-value champions like Sea Titan and Kong, Apocalypse + Plague have been able to reset the board while answering the few cards my opponent has that can effectively interact with me. Plague has also been fantastic winning me around 5 games with its 1 damage to face. That 1 damage to all champions has also resulted in at least 2 one-sided board clears removing multiple 1-gold champions, in addition to its shredding of Thought Pluckers, Forcemage Apprentices, and Necromancer Lords. This package has been so great for me in Core-Only that it has found its way into other decks, Core Epic Humans for instance. Brave Squire makes the board clears even that much more effective, I love it.

Deck List

Evil (9)

Slow ()

Fast (6)
3x Apocalypse
3x Plague

0-Cost (3)
3x Guilt Demon

Good (18)

Slow (6)
3x Avenging Angel
3x Gold Dragon

Fast (6)
3x Angel of Light
3x Ceasefire

0-Cost (6)
3x Brave Squire
3x Watchful Gargoyle

Sage (33)

Slow (9)
3x Blue Dragon
3x Djinn of the Sands
3x Winter Fairy

Fast (13)
3x Erase
3x Ice Drake
3x Memory Spirit
3x Transform
1x Time Bender

0-Cost (11)
3x Forcemage Apprentice
3x Hasty Retreat
3x Muse
2x Spike Trap

Wild ()

Slow ()

Fast ()

0-Cost ()

Deck Idea

I’ve warned against Human Token Swarm decks for a long time, even though they haven’t shown up much in the competitive meta, yet. Therefore, I really wanted to create a human token deck, especially since I think The People’s Champion is a strong card, even though it hasn’t fit into many of my decks.

Going into this, I new it would be a difficult deck to make without access to Revolt, Insurgency, Paros Rebel Leader, Rabble Rouser, etc. I had also tried to make this deck multiple times previously, giving up each time.

Gather Cards

Knowing that I largely couldn’t build the deck how I wanted to, due to a lack of supporting cards, my gather cards list ended up large and all over the place. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted a decent Good core for the The People’s Champions. From there, I was basically positive I wanted Courageous Soul + Secret Legion, Inheritance of the Meek, and Noble Unicorn (amazing Good alignment card).

(Human) Token Cards

For a deck that tries to build up human tokens, buff them, and attack for a ton of damage in one turn, these are the other cards in the core set to support this strategy directly (The People’s Champion, Courageous Soul, Secret Legion, and Inheritance of the Meek being worthwhile and already included): Dark Leader, Rally the People, Standard Bearer, Deadly Raid, and alternatively Drinker of Blood. As frequent readers know, I really dislike all of these cards.

Dark Leader is a 4 toughness body, that produces an extra 2/1 in stats every other turn while boosting humans by 1 offense and making them gain Evil in addition to their other alignment. While this can help non-Evil human loyalty effects like High King or Time Bender, and if you have Dark Leader in play, you can play Courageous Soul into The Risen, but none of those effects are worth a card slot to include, or a gold to play.

In order for Rally the People to be better than Fireball at dealing direct damage to your opponent, you need to hit with 4 of your champions already in play. Sure, you get an extra human when you play it, but that human can’t effectively gain blitz that turn (since if you play it before Secret Legion it doesn’t buff those human tokens created). You can also recall it, but if I don’t want to play it for free, why would I spend a gold to return it to hand? With the recall effect on a free card, it can be used to double buff champions already in play, but that still seems awful. One redeeming quality of it is that it does buff Lord of the Arena just enough to let it break Sea Titan in combat. While a certain guest blogger, might find it “really good” in this type of deck (taken only slightly out of context– 01:14:20), he’s wrong. Or at least I think he is, if anyone wants to convince me otherwise, the best way to do so is to beat me with it.

Of the few times I have played Standard Bearer, it is occasionally been surprisingly powerful. A static +2 offense buff can make certain champions (particularly human tokens) a lot more impactful. However, it only buffs Good champions and core set only doesn’t have enough ways to continuously produce incidental Good champions. Due to that, I feel Standard Bearer doesn’t offer enough for a gold expenditure. For it to be worthwhile, you need to already be decently far ahead, and it still gets sweeped up by all 1-cost board clears.

I do not like Deadly Raid. Many other people do. Using it to buff a bunch of tokens increases the value of the +2 offense buff, but it does little else and still leaves you vulnerable to board clears. Unblockable is nice and can get you past a stalemate, but stalemates frequently don’t last long in Epic anyways. (I’d much rather use it to make my one Steel Golem unblockable than 6 human tokens.) Think of it this way, it gives you the same offense boost as Rally the People, Recall, Rally the People except you trade unblockable for 2 human tokens, but at least you can draw 2 with Deadly Raid.

Drinker of Blood is interesting. It allows you to partially clear the board while gaining you health and losing your opponent health. This followed by Flash Fire can wipe out your tokens and convert them each into 4 health swings. Surprise Attack this in and then on your turn Zombie Apocalypse followed by Flash Fire/Wither, pretty nasty. One problem with this is that Drinker can frequently be dead in hand until you draw your combo pieces. Without immediately comboing, it can get bounced or banished for no effect. For these reasons, I don’t usually like it.

Wolf Token Cards

Frequently overlooked, Pack Alpha‘s ability to repeatedly put 2 3/3 wolf tokens into play is better than you think. Wave of Transformation is also great if you go wide with tokens, your opponent loses incredibly powerful champions, you upgrade/trade your tokens for wolf tokens. Wolf Companion can technically produce a wolf token when recalled or banished/recycled from your discard pile, but the +2/+2 effect is really weak. I also usually don’t consider Wolf’s Call a strong card because it is too easy to clear away the wolves at little cost to your opponent.

Evil Token Cards

Plentiful Dead is a great way to continuously pump out incidental tokens, if you have enough Evil cards to make it worthwhile. Infernal Gatekeeper, Demon Breach, Word of Summoning are all playable token spawn cards with The Risen being on the edge (Trihorror is pretty bad because it is too slow and easy to deal with effectively). Unfortunately, demon tokens don’t care as much about going as wide (getting a bunch of champions in play) as human tokens or even zombie/wolf tokens, since demon tokens are big enough to be threatening with only a few of them. In addition, I already have a Core Evil Tokens deck.

Establishing a Core

With all of this in mind, I picked out the most powerful token cards for my human token deck: The People’s Champion, Inheritance of the Meek, (Noble Unicorn), Secret Legion, Courageous Soul, Wave of Transformation, (Forcemage Apprentice), Pack Alpha, and (Fireball). These cards, so far, focused more on generating additional incremental value, mass off-turn capable board clears, and a couple explosive finishers. This realization intrigued me, and after pounding my head against my deck for a long time trying to make a human token deck work, I thought I would try adding in my Good core from Core Incremental Targeted Removal and see how that looked.

A primary aspect of this core is Banishment, High King, and White Dragon. Both Banishment and High King function as great on-turn lead-ins for White Dragon to get the recycle trigger. I also liked the Inner Demons as additional removal + token and as a way to get Guilt Demons into the list. Priestess of Angeline and Watchful Gargoyle also make sense in a Good deck. I did want to skew the Good cards a bit more towards control though.

Inner Peace replaced Angel of Light because it can be recalled and the extra 5/6 body is less relevant in this deck. Angel of Mercy was dropped due to less Good champions. Avenging Angel stayed because it is a great on-turn must-answer gold-punisher. By this point, I had shifted away from a human token swarm one-shot kill emphasis deck towards a grindy control deck. The People’s Champion and Pack Alpha produce the tokens I use to attack my opponent and slow their aggression, while everything else is there to halt their progression.

Since I plan on incidentally going wide throughout the game, I expect to draw out my opponent’s board clears early, particularly 0-cost semi clears like Flash Fire and Wither. Ideally, they will run out quickly which allows my Wolf’s Calls and Secret Legions to function as off-turn gold-punishers to keep my chip damage going. These cards can also be used as on-turn gold-punishers. If I played my Pack Alpha last turn and expended it this turn, playing Wolf’s Call lets me threaten 18 damage: 6 wolves with blitz and +1/+1. Wolf’s Call is also a great punish for an opponent who Wave of Transformations on my turn while my gold is up.

Drinker of Blood

Drinker of Blood can also work nicely in this deck, in theory. If I have significant tokens in play at the start of my turn, either incidentally or after playing an off-turn Wolf’s Call/Secret Legion, I can drop Drinker while my opponent’s gold is up. This makes all of my tokens into 4 health swing bombs if blocked. Answers for this play include: off-turn AoE board clear, bounce/banish Drinker, or Ceasefire/Ice Drake.

My opponent’s off-turn AoE board clear options in core only include: (Plague), Zombie Apocalypse, Inheritance of the Meek, Stand Alone, Wave of Transformation, Fireball, Flash Fire, Hurricane, Lightning Storm, and Surprise Attack -> Angel of Death/Time Walker. Drinker of Blood survives all of the break/damage based ones giving me plenty of triggers. My tokens survive and can still attack after Inheritance of the Meek. Wave of Transformation leaves me with a lot of wolves, but I can’t push any more damage that turn. The only truly awful off-turn board clear for me is Surprise Attack -> Time Walker. It removes all of my tokens and my Drinker. While this is powerful, I don’t expect to see it too often, and they need to have both at the same time for it to work.

Erase is usually a strong answer against Drinker and other slow champions, but in this case, it leaves the rest of my tokens free to attack that turn, same with all other non-breaking/damaging targeted removal. Ceasefire and Ice Drake can punish this strategy hard though.

With the addition of Drinker, I filled out the rest of the deck with Guilt Demons, Ancient Chants, an Amnesia, 2 Fireballs, and 1 Flash Fire. (Usually I want Fireballs over Flash Fire for this deck to keep my tokens in play, but 1 Flash Fire is added to combo with Drinker.) And that’s it… … Fine.

Thought Plucker

When I went back to my deck to find a way to force in a single copy of Amnesia, I realized that this deck probably wants Thought Plucker, which means I have to defend that choice, which I don’t want to do…but I will. Dang you Dixon!

Thought Plucker is an incredibly powerful card. It is an ambush champion that immediately draws a card and forces your opponent to discard. Even better, it repeats this effect every time it damages your opponent + it’s unblockable. If unanswered, Thought Plucker is one of the quickest ways to completely decimate an opponent.

Further, very few cards, particularly in core set answer it effectively: Spike Trap is the best followed by, Unquenchable Thirst, Wither, Forcemage Apprentice, Fireball, Flash Fire, and Lash (Plague honorable mention). For all of the 0-cost answers except Spike Trap and Forcemage Apprentice, to an extent, the non-Thought Plucker player is forced to lose their second card (first one discarded) to prevent Thought Plucker from hitting them. If they are only able to break it by using their gold, they risk getting hit by a plethora of on-turn gold-punishers, such as Final Tasking that Thought Plucker back for probably 2 more Thought Plucker triggers (tribute and dealing damage with blitz).

With the addition of Uprising and Tyrants, players get access to Wolf’s Bite/Blind Faith/etc. which can answer Thought Plucker much more effectively, but without them, Thought Pluckers are real threats, which is why all of my decks are forced to include multiple answers for them. However, Thought Pluckers can also be punished by opponents who include Soul Hunters and/or ally -> recall cards. These cards can either punish a forced discard or largely negate it. Since I believe the best players will have punishes/answers for Thought Pluckers, I usually don’t include them in my decks.

However, this deck naturally addresses the weaknesses of Thought Plucker. I already have a plethora of valuable low defense targets for 0-cost removal: Guilt Demon, High King, Courageous Soul, Priestess of Angeline, Watchful Gargoyle, Forcemage Apprentice, and all of my tokens. Therefore, it is less likely my opponent can answer Thought Plucker immediately, and if they save removal for Plucker, those other cards could go unanswered. Drawing out a Flash Fire to deal with just a Thought Plucker is great because it makes my Courageous Soul -> Secret Legion more likely to connect.

I am also packing a bunch of banish/transform effects that can deal with Soul Hunter: Banishment, High King, Inheritance of the Meek, and Wave of Transformation. In addition, I have 2 Guilt Demons and 1 Amnesia to attack Soul Hunter and ally-recall cards that get discarded (I would like more but I can’t make room for them). In other words, I get access to all of the potential strength of Plucker while shielding myself from a lot of its potential weaknesses.

At this point my deck is complete, but the rest of my gather cards list looked like this:

Evil ()

Slow ()
Drinker of Blood, Infernal Gatekeeper, Soul Hunter, Trihorror

Fast ()
Bitten, Dark Leader, Demon Breach, Drain Essence, Final Task, Inner Demon, Plague, The Risen, Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost ()
Corpse Taker, Dark Knight, Guilt Demon, Plentiful Dead, Thrasher Demon, Wither, Word of Summoning

Good ()

Slow ()
Avenging Angel, Gold Dragon, High King, Lord of the Arena, Palace Guard, White Knight

Fast ()
Angel of Light, Angel of Mercy, Angelic Protector, Banishment, Ceasefire, Divine Judgement, Inner Peace, Resurrection

0-Cost ()
Brave Squire, Priestess of Angeline, Rally the People, Watchful Gargoyle, White Dragon

Sage ()

Slow ()
Blue Dragon, Djinn of the Sands, Frost Giant, Sea Titan, Winter Fairy

Fast ()
Crystal Golem, Deadly Raid, Erase, Memory Spirit

0-Cost ()
Amnesia, Forcemage Apprentice, Hasty Retreat, Keeper of Secrets, Muse, Ogre Mercenary, Spike Trap

Wild ()

Slow ()
Bellowing Minotaur, Rampaging Wurm

Fast ()
Flame Strike, Mighty Blow, Pyromancer, Surprise Attack

0-Cost ()
Cave Troll, Fireball, Flash Fire, Wolf Companion

Distributions

While I did consider my distributions while building the deck, hence Avenging Angel, Forcemage Apprentice, Amnesia, and Ancient Chant, I didn’t need much of a strictly Distributions phase while building.

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): 2 Inner Demon, 3 Banishment, 3 Inheritance of the Meek, 3 Noble Unicorn, 2 Secret Legion, 3 Priestess of Angeline, 2 Watchful Gargoyle, 3 White Dragon, 2 Ancient Chant, 3 Thought Plucker, 3 Wave of Transformation, 1x Amnesia, 1 Flash Fire
Unreliable (2 x 1/2 = 2): 2 Inner Peace

20 0-cost Cards (20)
2 Guilt Demon, 3 Courageous Soul, 3 Priestess of Angeline, 2 Watchful Gargoyle, 3 White Dragon, 1 Amnesia, 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 2 Fireball, 1 Flash Fire

20- On My Turn Cards (19)
Champions (14):  2 Drinker of Blood, 3 Avenging Angel, 3 High King, 3 The People’s Champion, 3 Pack Alpha
Events (5): 2 Inner Demon, 3 Banishment

33+ Primary Alignment Cards (33)
3 Avenging Angel, 3 Banishment, 3 High King, 3 The People’s Champion, 3 Inheritance of the Meek, 2 Inner Peace, 3 Noble Unicorn, 2 Secret Legion, 3 Courageous Soul, 3 Priestess of Angeline, 2 Watchful Gargoyle, 3 White Dragon

3-9+ On-Turn Gold-Punishers (8)
3 Avenging Angel, 2 Secret Legion (3 Courageous Soul), 3 Wolf’s Call

3-9+ Off-Turn Gold-Punishers (10)
3 Noble Unicorn, 2 Secret Legion, 2 Thought Plucker, 3 Wolf’s Call

1+ Mass Discard Pile Banish (1)
1 Amnesia

3 Drain Essences or Comparable Health Gain (10)
Reliable (10): 2 Drinker of Blood, 3 Avenging Angel, 2 Inner Peace, 3 Priestess of Angeline

3-9+ Muse/Thought Plucker 0-Cost Answers (6)
Reliable (6): 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 2 Fireball, 1 Flash Fire

Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan

Chump Sea Titan and attack past it with tokens. The Sea Titan will eventually get caught up in a board clear.

Thoughts/Concerns

This deck is a pretty big departure from my preferred style of play, so it is even more experimental than some of my other core only decks. Also, as a player who focuses on midrange decks, a few of those cards spilled in that many other control players might not include.

In addition, this deck seems like it will be very easy to misplay and will require significant patience.

Aside from that though, I just want more discard pile banish. It was really hard to go down to 2 Guilt Demons, but I didn’t see anywhere else I wanted to cut for my Amnesia. On a side note, I do think 2 Drinker of Blood is correct instead of 3. While I see myself finding an opening to play it in most matches, it is frequently a dead/unplayable card for large stretches of a game. Therefore having 3 in hand would generally be an auto-loss.

Deck List

Evil (6)

Slow (6)
2x Drinker of Blood
2x Inner Demon

Fast ()

0-Cost (2)
2x Guilt Demon

Good (33)

Slow (12)
3x Avenging Angel
3x Banishment
3x High King
3x The People’s Champion

Fast (10)
3x Inheritance of the Meek
2x Inner Peace
3x Noble Unicorn
2x Secret Legion

0-Cost (11)
3x Courageous Soul
3x Priestess of Angeline
2x Watchful Gargoyle
3x White Dragon

Sage (12)

Slow ()

Fast (8)
2x Ancient Chant
3x Thought Plucker
3x Wave of Transformation

0-Cost (4)
1x Amnesia
3x Forcemage Apprentice

Wild (9)

Slow (3)
3x Pack Alpha

Fast (3)
3x Wolf’s Call

0-Cost (3)
2x Fireball
1x Flash Fire

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)

Slow (4)
3x Kong
1x Sea Hydra

Fast (6)
3x Pyromancer
3x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (5)
3x Flash Fire
2x Lash

Deck Idea

Make a core only Wild-focused deck.

Gather Cards

Based on my general play style, I naturally gravitated towards all of the Tribute -> draw a card champions. By including those and most of the other powerful non-burn Wild cards, my deck was pretty much complete. 3 Jungle Queen, 3 Kong, 3 Raging T-Rex, 3 Rampaging Wurm, 3 Sea Hydra, 3 Triceratops, 3 Flame Strike, 3 Strafing Dragon, 3 Surprise Attack, 3 Cave Troll, 3 Fireball, 3 Flash Fire, 3 Rage, and 3 Wurm Hatchling were pretty much auto-includes for me. The other primary Wild cards I was considering were Lurking Giant, Rain of Fire, Hunting Raptors, Pyromancer, Lash, and Fire Shaman.

Drain Essence was basically another auto-include for me, and I knew I wanted Guilt Demon to go with it. This is basically what my gather cards list looked like:

Evil ()

Slow ()
Army of the Apocalypse

Fast ()
Plague, The Risen, Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost ()
Guilt Demon

Good ()

Slow ()

Fast ()

0-Cost ()

Sage ()

Slow ()

Fast ()
Crystal Golem, Deadly Raid, Ice Drake, Turn

0-Cost ()
Amnesia

Wild ()

Slow ()
Bellowing Minotaur, Burrowing Wurm

Fast ()
Hunting Raptors, Hurricane, Lightning Storm, Lurking Giant, Mighty Blow, Pyromancer, Rain of Fire, Wolf’s Call

0-Cost ()
Fire Shaman, Lash

Distributions

In order to be more resilient against 1-cost bounce effects, I eventually landed on Hunting Raptors. Since many of my other cards just draw cards when they enter play, I wanted something that could do permanent damage if I am continually forced to replay it. I view this essentially as Flame Strike with a body. Without access to Lightning Strike or Vanishing, if I play this on my opponent’s turn when their gold is down, I am almost assured to be able to use it at the start of my next turn too. In other words, I get 8 direct damage through, and if they return it to my hand, I’ll probably get another 8 direct damage through later. (Strafing Dragon is also excellent in this role.)

Another card I really like in these straightforward decks is Amnesia. Cutting off your opponent’s access to their discard pile at a critical time can largely cripple them and cause them to succumb to my pressure. It will briefly prevent them from recycling, and it can stop big Army of the Apocalypse or similar turns. To allow me to run Amnesias, I decided on Memory Spirits because they let me get back my powerful 0-cost events (Amnesia, Fireball, Flash Fire, and Rage), and they can get back Drain Essence, Surprise Attack, or Flame Strike too.

To fill out my required Evil 1-cost cards, I went with Zombie Apocalypse because my deck is full of champions, and I have significant discard pile removal already. For my final Sage 1-cost card, I settled on Djinn of the Sands as an additional on-turn gold-punisher with its 8/8 airborne, blitz body.

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 (30): 3 Zombie Apocalypse, 1 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Memory Spirit, 2 Amnesia, 3 Jungle Queen, 3 Raging T-Rex, 3 Sea Hydra, 3 Triceratops, 3 Surprise Attack, 3 Flash Fire, 3 Rage
Unreliable (3 x 1/2 = 1.5): 3 Cave Troll

20 0-cost Cards (20)
3 Guilt Demon, 2 Amnesia, 3 Cave Troll, 3 Fireball, 3 Flash Fire, 3 Rage, 3 Wurm Hatchling

20- On My Turn Cards (19)
Champions (19): 1 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Jungle Queen, 3 Kong, 3 Raging T-Rex, 3 Rampaging Wurm, 3 Sea Hydra, 3 Triceratops
Events (0):

33+ Primary Alignment Cards (45)
3 Jungle Queen, 3 Kong, 3 Raging T-Rex, 3 Rampaging Wurm, 3 Sea Hydra, 3 Triceratops, 3 Flame Strike, 3 Hunting Raptors, 3 Strafing Dragon, 3 Surprise Attack, 3 Cave Troll, 3 Fireball, 3 Flash Fire, 3 Rage, 3 Wurm Hatchling

3-9+ On-Turn Gold-Punishers (7)
1 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Rampaging Wurm, 3 Strafing Dragon

3-9+ Off-Turn Gold-Punishers (12)
3 Memory Spirit, 3 Hunting Raptors, 3 Strafing Dragon, 3 Surprise Attack (3 Jungle Queen to enable 15 other off-turn gold-punishers)

1+ Mass Discard Pile Banish (2)
2 Amnesia

3 Drain Essences or Comparable Health Gain (3)
Reliable (3): 3 Drain Essence

3-9+ Muse/Thought Plucker 0-Cost Answers (7.5)
Reliable (5): 3 Fireball, 3 Flash Fire
Unreliable (3 x 1/2 = 1.5): 3 Memory Spirit

Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan
Hunting Raptors and Strafing Dragon get damage past Sea Titan, Memory Spirit and Djinn of the Sands can too. Cave Troll can chump Sea Titan, and Zombie Apocalypse can break it if needed.

Rampaging Wurm as well as a Raged Kong/Raging T-Rex/Triceratops (potentially Sea Hydra) doesn’t really care that much about Sea Titan either. A blocked Kong attack followed up by a Flash Fire also breaks Sea Titan.

Thoughts/Concerns

The deck is fairly simple: play big things and attack with them. The 12 Tribute -> Draw a card champions or better allow me (in theory) to keep playing threats without needing to draw 2 too often. Due to these 12 champions, it might be correct to go first with this deck. Probably not because basically no deck wants to go first, but we will see. Being able to start the game by establishing the first threat could be the best case scenario.

Deck List

Evil (9)

Slow ()

Fast (6)
3x Drain Essence
3x Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost (3)
3x Guilt Demon

Good ()

Slow ()

Fast ()

0-Cost ()

Sage (6)

Slow (1)
1x Djinn of the Sands

Fast (3)
3x Memory Spirit

0-Cost (2)
2x Amnesia

Wild (45)

Slow (18)
3x Jungle Queen
3x Kong
3x Raging T-Rex
3x Rampaging Wurm
3x Sea Hydra
3x Triceratops

Fast (12)
3x Flame Strike
3x Hunting Raptors
3x Strafing Dragon
3x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (15)
3x Cave Troll
3x Fireball
3x Flash Fire
3x Rage
3x Wurm Hatchling

Deck Idea

After my Core Incremental Targeted Removal deck (my original Sage deck plan) morphed into a Good-focused deck, I decided to look through Sage to find a more natural take on a Sage deck. I figured Steel Golem would play a role, but I didn’t know much more than that before gathering cards. (I explain the emergent deck idea in the Gather Cards section below.)

Gather Cards (With Explanation)

While gathering cards and not seeing anything particularly new and interesting, I decided to fall back on a classic: Sage Evil with blitzing 0-cost champions, bounce effects, and Army of the Apocalypse.

Guilt Demon, Dark Knight, and Warrior Golem are excellent blitzing 0-cost threats that can be played while both players still have their gold. Frequently, your opponent can’t stop the 0-cost champions without spending their gold, so they either take the damage or risk exposing themself to a 1-cost blitzing champion (on-turn gold-punisher).

If they didn’t deal with the 0-cost blitz champion, cards like Time Walker and Sea Titan can return them to my hand to be used aggressively again next turn, or even on the same turn. Dark Knight attack, deal damage, then Sea Titan it back to hand, great.

Army of the Apocalypse can also bring multiple of these champions back to play for an even bigger attack, especially when you add in any other 1-cost inherent blitz champions in my discard pile. However, while building I decided I wanted to use my Armies more frequently than just as a kill shot. To accomplish this, I include 3 Amnesias (+ the 3 Guilt Demons) to attack my opponent’s ability to get value from Army. At the same time, in addition to my blitz champions, I have Crystal Golem to draw cards and just obnoxiously big, untargetable champions. Essentially, if I can Army to get back 2 1-cost champions on my turn while providing no benefit to my opponent, I probably will, especially if at least one of those champions is an inherent blitz champion or Crystal Golem.

Once I established this premise, the auto includes were: 3 Guilt Demon, 3 Dark Knight, 3 Army of the Apocalypse, 3 Juggernaut, 3 Sea Titan, X Time Walkers, 3 Crystal Golems, 3 Amnesia, and 3 Warrior Golem. (24 cards). This is what my gather cards list looked like.

Evil ()

Slow ()

Fast ()

0-Cost ()

Good ()

Slow ()
Avenging Angel

Fast ()

0-Cost ()

Sage ()

Slow ()
Blue Dragon, Djinn of the Sands, Frost Giant, Steel Golem, Winter Fairy

Fast ()
Ancient Chant, Lying in Wait, Memory Spirit

0-Cost ()
Amnesia, Hasty Retreat, Keeper of Secrets, Muse, Ogre Mercenary

Wild ()

Slow ()
Rampaging Wurm

Fast ()
Flame Strike, Surprise Attack

0-Cost ()
Fireball, Flash Fire

Distributions

Drain Essence was an easy add to fill out my Evil 1-cost cards. Same with Forcemage Apprentice to fill my 0-cost Sage slots and to break Muses. I still wanted more ways to break Muse and I was struggling to find any other 1-cost Evil cards to allow me to bring Wither/Unquenchable Thirst, so that left me with Wild, specifically Fireball. I didn’t know exactly what 1-cost Wild cards would go with it, but at least there were viable options.

In order to reach 33+ Sage cards, I decided on Djinn of the Sands, Steel Golem, Ancient Chant, and Erase for 1’s. Even though Djinn of the Sands won’t get counters when I bring it back with Army, it is still a 5/5 airborne blitz champion. Steel Golem won’t gain blitz (because its Loyalty 2 effect won’t trigger when brought back with Army), but it is still a 13/13 untargetable champion. Erase is nice for returning my 0-cost champions after attacking and drawing me two cards. It is also strong in aggressive decks because your opponent has less chance to gain value from replaying strong Loyalty 2/Tribute champions. (Bouncing a Raging T-Rex when your opponent is already at 7 cards in hand is just fine).

Hasty Retreat was added primarily as a safety valve against other aggressive decks, but it can also be used to return my attacking champions. Play and attack with Guilt Demon, banishing 2 cards in the process. Your opponent blocks with Thundarus, flipping it. You play Hasty Retreat, return Guilt Demon to hand, replay it, attack, banish 2 cards, and safely fly past the now flipped Thundarus.

To fill out my 1-cost Wild cards, I decided to go with the blunt, aggressive approach: Rampaging Wurm and Flame Strike. This deck is already fairly aggressive, but both of these can really help beat an opponent to a pulp. Getting a 14/14 blitzer back with Army of the Apocalypse and something else is pretty great.

Filling out my Evil cards was much more challenging. There weren’t really any other 1-cost Evil cards I wanted, but Guilt Demon and Dark Knight were non-negotiable. I ended up reluctantly taking Zombie Apocalypse since I already wanted to prevent my opponent from having champions in their discard pile. In addition, it is another safety-valve if I get behind, Juggernaut lives through it on my turn, and it can draw 2 (which I needed). Final Task was my last choice, primarily because it can draw 2 too. It can work great with Juggernaut, and I do have big champions like Sea Titan that can win games if Final Tasked, but I still don’t really want it in this deck.

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)
Reliable (31): 3 Army of the Apocalypse, 3 Final Task, 3 Zombie Apocalypse, 3 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Juggernaut, 2 Ancient Chant, 3 Crystal Golem, 3 Erase, 3 Amnesia, 2 Hasty Retreat, 3 Warrior Golem
Unreliable (0 x 1/2 = 0):

20 0-cost Cards (20)
3 Dark Knight, 3 Guilt Demon, 3 Amnesia, 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 2 Hasty Retreat, 3 Warrior Golem, 3 Fireball

20- On My Turn Cards (20)
Champions (11): 3 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Juggernaut, 3 Sea Titan, 3 Steel Golem, 2 Time Walker, 3 Rampaging Wurm
Events (3): 3 Army of the Apocalypse

33+ Primary Alignment Cards (33)
3 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Juggernaut, 3 Sea Titan, 3 Steel Golem, 2 Time Walker, 2 Ancient Chant, 3 Crystal Golem, 3 Erase, 3 Amnesia, 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 2 Hasty Retreat, 3 Warrior Golem

3-9+ On-Turn Gold-Punishers (15)
3 Army of the Apocalypse, 3 Djinn of the Sands, 3 Juggernaut, 3 Steel Golem, 3 Rampaging Wurm

All but Steel Golem and Rampaging Wurm have alternate uses than on-turn gold-punisher. Arguably Time Walker and Sea Titan could be added to this list.

3-9+ Off-Turn Gold-Punishers (3)
3 Crystal Golem

This deck generally tries to kill on its turn and survive its opponent’s turn.

1+ Mass Discard Pile Banish (3)
3 Amnesia

3 Drain Essences or Comparable Health Gain (3)
Reliable (3): 3 Drain Essence

3-9+ Muse/Thought Plucker 0-Cost Answers (6)
Reliable (6): 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 3 Fireball

Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan

This deck is fairly ill-equipped to deal with Sea Titan. Only Zombie Apocalypse removes it, only Rampaging Wurm beats it in combat, and only Djinn of the Sands can fly over it; however, the deck will hopefully be able to apply enough pressure to force Sea Titan to stay on the defensive. My own Sea Titans and Steel Golems can also block enemy Sea Titans while being immune to bounce effects (untargetable). In addition, I can theoretically throw enough attackers at my opponent to overwhelm their Sea Titans.

Aside from that, I actually met all of my distributions!

Thoughts/Concerns

This deck is very strong while ahead. It can pressure with 0-cost blitz champions and punish hard on its turn when an opponent spends their gold first. If this deck is able to come out of the gate quick and force the opponent to play reactively, it might do well. It also has the ability to finish off a weakened opponent with burn.

On the flip side, it seems very weak from behind. It doesn’t have a ton of interaction, and all it can pretty much do is attack. If the opponent gets a couple champions ahead on the board, this deck can currently only really reset with Zombie Apocalypse, Time Walker, or Sea Titan. It might be correct to add in more board clears like Apocalypse/Plague or Stand Alone, but that would potentially diminish the effectiveness of Army of the Apocalypse and the unrelenting blitz pressure.

In addition, while untargetable on Sea Titan, Steel Golem, and Crystal Golem is excellent protection, it does prevent me from including Lashes/Rages to get damage through with them. Add that to the fact that the deck only has 3 Fireballs for fast 0-cost removal and tokens become a real problem. One unremoved The People’s Champion or Plentiful Dead could halt much of my champions’ aggression, at least until my opponent can board clear me. While I don’t expect to see a lot of The People’s Champion, it would go a long way towards beating this deck.

It’s possible that the deck might work better in Evil. Bring Angel of Deaths, Apocalypses, and Plagues with Vampire Lords and just keep playing 0-cost blitz threats while repeatedly clearing the board. Or, keep it Sage focused, so I can run 3 Time Walker instead of trying to reach 3 Angel of Death… Okay, I talked myself into making a change: **see Board Clear adjustment below**

Deck List

Evil (18)

Slow (3)
3x Army of the Apocalypse

Fast (9)
3x Drain Essence
3x Final Task
3x Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost (6)
3x Dark Knight
3x Guilt Demon

Good ()

Slow ()

Fast ()

0-Cost ()

Sage (33)

Slow (14)
3x Djinn of the Sands
3x Juggernaut
3x Sea Titan
3x Steel Golem
2x Time Walker

Fast (8)
2x Ancient Chant
3x Crystal Golem
3x Erase

0-Cost (11)
3x Amnesia
3x Forcemage Apprentice
2x Hasty Retreat
3x Warrior Golem

Wild (9)

Slow (3)
3x Rampaging Wurm

Fast (3)
3x Flame Strike

0-Cost (3)
3x Fireball

Deck Idea

I wanted to make a core only Evil Token deck for Epic Card Game Digital Alpha.

Gather Cards

A large portion of this deck built itself. As a (Evil) token deck, I knew I wanted Murderous Necromancer, Demon Breach, Plentiful Dead, Inheritance of the Meek, and probably Infernal Gatekeeper.

As an Evil deck, I knew I wanted Medusa and probably Necromancer Lord. Since I planned on consistently having small tokens in play, I decided not to bring Angel of Death in the prototype version. Drain Essence, Guilt Demon, and Wither were 3 more easy Evil includes. The rest of the process was filling holes. This is what my gather cards list looked like:

Evil ()

Slow ()
Angel of Death, Dark Assassin, Drinker of Blood, Infernal Gatekeeper, Trihorror

Fast ()
Apocalypse, Bitten, Inner Demon, Plague, The Risen, Vampire Lord, Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost ()
Guilt Demon, Thrasher Demon, Unquenchable Thirst, Word of Summoning

Good ()

Slow ()

Fast ()
Inner Peace

0-Cost ()
Brave Squire, Courageous Soul, Watchful Gargoyle

Sage ()

Slow ()

Fast ()
Ancient Chant, Deadly Raid, Erase, Lying in Wait, Wave of Transformation

0-Cost ()
Amnesia, Forcemage Apprentice, Hasty Retreat

Wild ()

Slow ()
Pack Alpha, Rampaging Wurm

Fast ()
Flame Strike, Mighty Blow, Surprise Attack

0-Cost ()
Fireball, Flash Fire

Distributions

One of my first thoughts when building decks is always, “how can I deal with Muse.” I’m a big fan of Forcemage Apprentice for this role, in theory, and I like Fireball for it too, in theory. In order to fill out the 1-cost cards to allow me to run these 0’s, Wave of Transformation seemed like a great choice. Since I’m going wide on the board (playing a lot of small champions), I’ll probably end up with more wolves in play most of the time. In addition, it is able to answer any champion in the game (Sea Titan). Ancient Chant is also always high on my list. For Wild, I like Pack Alpha as a way to increase my ability to go wide in a dedicated token deck.

In an effort to add on-turn gold finishers, I stumbled upon the most interesting aspect of this deck: Secret Legion + Courageous Soul. As an on-turn gold-punisher, Courageous Soul into Secret Legion threatens 22 damage across 7 attackers. Normally, this isn’t terribly hard to counter, especially if used while your opponent’s gold is up, but since this deck ideally will produce multiple hordes of tokens, my opponent might use up their 0-cost mass removal (Flash Fire) early and be unable to stop my assault. (The lack of Blind Faith is another big boon for this combination.)

Another great aspect of this combination is that both cards can work fine by themselves in this deck. Secret Legion can draw 2 cards if needed, and Courageous Soul can make my board of Evil tokens a lot more dangerous. I really like the idea of adding this combination to a deck otherwise devoid of human tokens. I am excited to see how it works in practice.

Finally, I filled my 0-cost Evil requirements and my 1-cost requirements to support my Fireballs. At this point, I needed more card draw. Word of Summoning as additional demon + recycle seemed like the best Evil 0-cost choice left. Final Task is an “or draw 2,” and it works great with Murderous Necromancer and Necromancer Lord, pretty decent with Medusa too. Bitten was just the best “or draw 2” Evil card for the deck, but I don’t really want it. Mighty Blow I like in theory with token decks because it is easier to slip a token through without getting blocked (then you make it unbreakable and give it +10 offense). I also traded out 1 Forcemage Apprentice for an Amnesia (draw or recycle while meeting my 1+ mass discard pile banish distribution).

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. (27.5)
Reliable (26): 3 Bitten, 3 Final Task, 3 Plentiful Dead, 3 Word of Summoning, 3 Inheritance of the Meek, 3 Secret Legion, 3 Ancient Chant, 3 Wave of Transformation, 1 Amnesia, 1 Mighty Blow
Unreliable (3 x 1/2 = 1.5): 3 Demon Breach

I don’t like being under 30+ of these cards, but I’ll try it out and see how it works before I contort the deck further to meet this distribution. If I decide to cut some cards for more draw, Infernal Gatekeeper and Necromancer Lord are both viable possibilities in order to add Plagues or Apocalypses.

If I cut the Gatekeepers, my Necromancer Lords get worse with me only having 11 other 1-cost champions to return to play. If I cut the Necromancer Lords, my Final Tasks get weaker.

Pack Alphas could also be traded for additional Mighty Blows.

I could also theoretically trade out my Fireballs for Flash Fires and stick in a couple Drinkers of Blood, but I’m not a huge fan of that idea. Flash Fire will usually break my own champions, and I wouldn’t be likely to draw the 1 or 2 Drinkers I add to go with them at the right time.

20 0-cost Cards (20)
2 Forcemage Apprentice, 1 Amnesia, 3 Guilt Demon, 3 Plentiful Dead, 3 Wither, 3 Word of Summoning, 3 Courageous Soul, 2 Fireball

20- On My Turn Cards (15)
Champions (12): 3 Infernal Gatekeeper, 3 Murderous Necromancer, 3 Necromancer Lord, 3 Pack Alpha
Events (3): 3 Demon Breach

33+ Primary Alignment Cards (36)
3 Demon Breach, 3 Infernal Gatekeeper, 3 Murderous Necromancer, 3 Necromancer Lord, 3 Bitten, 3 Drain Essence, 3 Final Task, 3 Medusa, 3 Guilt Demon, 3 Plentiful Dead, 3 Wither, 3 Word of Summoning

3-9+ On-Turn Gold-Punishers (3)
3 Secret Legion (with 3 Courageous Soul)

3-9+ Off-Turn Gold-Punishers (3)
3 Medusa

1+ Mass Discard Pile Banish (1)
1 Amnesia

3 Drain Essences or Comparable Health Gain (3)
Reliable (3): 3 Drain Essence

3-9+ Muse/Thought Plucker 0-Cost Answers (7)
Reliable (7): 3 Wither, 2 Forcemage Apprentice, 2 Fireball

Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan
Flood the board with tokens so Sea Titan can’t block them all. Chump block Sea Titan with tokens if it attacks. Remove it with Wave of Transformation or Inheritance of the Meek.

Thoughts/Concerns

With only 3 on-turn gold-punishers, 3 off-turn gold-punishers and the inclusion of multiple board clears, this deck is a lot more controlling than many of my other decks. Against control decks, I worry that I might not have enough threats to pressure them out.

Under 30+ reliable card draw is another aspect I worry about. Due to my low 1-cost champion count, it might be correct to remove or at least decrease my Necromancer Lord count for Evil cards that can draw.

Aside from those, we’ll just have to see how it plays and make adjustments form there.

Deck List

Evil (36)

Slow (12)
3x Demon Breach
3x Infernal Gatekeeper
3x Murderous Necromancer
3x Necromancer Lord

Fast (12)
3x Bitten
3x Drain Essence
3x Final Task
3x Medusa

0-Cost (12)
3x Guilt Demon
3x Plentiful Dead
3x Wither
3x Word of Summoning

Good (9)

Slow ()

Fast (6)
3x Inheritance of the Meek
3x Secret Legion

0-Cost (3)
3x Courageous Soul

Sage (9)

Slow ()

Fast (6)
3x Ancient Chant
3x Wave of Transformation

0-Cost (3)
1x Amnesia
2x Forcemage Apprentice

Wild (6)

Slow (3)
3x Pack Alpha

Fast (1)
1x Mighty Blow

0-Cost (2)
2x Fireball

Deck Idea

This was the first deck I made when I found out I would need a core-only deck for the Epic Digital alpha. I wanted to make a Sage deck that didn’t rely on Sea Titan, Thought Plucker, or Muse. The only cards I knew I wanted were Blue Dragon and Forcemage Apprentice (probably Drain Essence too). I figured I would build some form of mid-range controllish deck with the ability to apply consistent pressure while fighting off aggro/burn decks.

Gather Cards

In my initial gathering of cards I didn’t find too many Evil cards I wanted to include outside of an Evil-focused deck, aside from Drain Essence and probably Guilt Demon. I was a little surprised to see that I had grabbed a significant number of Good cards including: Inner Peace, Angel of Light, White Dragon + Banishment, and High King.

I was even more surprised to find out just how few Sage cards I actually wanted to include. In addition to not wanting Sea Titan, Thought Plucker, and Muse out of stubbornness, I didn’t want Erase/Time Bender because I expected a lot of Strafing Dragons and other strong tribute/loyalty, bounce-dissuading champions. I didn’t really want Juggernaut with its 3 defense. Wave of Transformation wasn’t really what I was looking for, etc. Wild also didn’t have much of what I was looking to do.

Therefore, I decided to pursue the Banishment + White Dragon route that I have been toying with for awhile. I think White Dragon is an incredibly powerful card, especially when used along an on-turn targeted removal card, namely Banishment or High King (removal + an airborne, recycling threat). Since I want to hit High King loyalty, I wanted other powerful Good cards: Angel of Light is great against burn, Noble Unicorn is one of Good’s best cards, and Priestess of Angeline can help keep me alive against burn decks while not costing a card in hand.

To compliment the Banishment/High King + White Dragon plan, I wanted other ways to gain incremental advantage while disrupting my opponent. Inner Demon as removal + demon intrigued me, and in combination with Drain Essence, it gave me the ability to run triple Guilt Demon.

With the idea that I wanted to gain incremental advantage through on-turn events like Inner Demon and Banishment, Memory Spirit seemed like a great addition. Get me back my powerful events while giving me an off-turn, airborne threat. In order to get access to more off-turn threats and to increase my Good pool of cards, I decided to add in Angel of Mercy (especially with the reduced access to discard pile banish cards for core only decks).

With only 2 answers to Muse so far, I figured It would be worth splashing a bit for some Fireballs (also great with Memory Spirit), but I didn’t know the other Wild cards I wanted to go with them. At this point, I had the core of the deck set with the cards I knew I wanted. The rest of deck construction was largely filling the holes left in my distributions. This is what my gather cards list looked like:

Evil ()

Slow ()

Fast ()
Apocalypse, Army of the Apocalypse, Bitten, Demon Breach, Final Task, Inner Demon, Plague, Vampire Lord, Zombie Apocalypse

0-Cost ()
Dark Knight, Guilt Demon, Plentiful Dead, Wither

Good ()

Slow ()
Avenging Angel, Gold Dragon, Palace Guard

High King, Lord of the Arena, The People’s Champion, White Knight

Fast ()
Angelic Protector, Banishment, Ceasefire, Inner Peace, Noble Unicorn, Resurrection

Angel of Light, Angel of Mercy, Divine Judgement, Inheritance of the Meek

0-Cost ()
Brave Squire, Watchful Gargoyle

Faithful Pegasus, Priestess of Angeline, White Dragon

Sage ()

Slow ()
Djinn of the Sands, Frost Giant, Juggernaut, Sea Titan, Steel Golem, Time Walker, Turn, Winter Fairy

Fast ()
Ancient Chant, Crystal Golem, Erase, Ice Drake, Thought Plucker, Time Bender, Wave of Transformation

0-Cost ()
Amnesia, Keeper of Secrets, Hasty Retreat, Muse, Warrior Golem

Wild ()

Slow ()
Kong, Rampaging Wurm, Sea Hydra

Fast ()
Flame Strike, Lightning Storm, Lurking Giant, Rain of Fire, Surprise Attack

0-Cost ()
Fireball, Flash Fire

Distributions

One aspect my deck was clearly lacking was on-turn gold-punishers. To resolve this, I decided to go with Rampaging Wurm and Avenging Angel. Rampaging Wurm is just a great no-alignment-commitment-required, on-turn gold-punisher (although the lack of 0-cost removal or Lash/Rage to support it is concerning). Avenging Angel is an airborne blitz threat with health gain and attack prevention. Seemed pretty strong for what the deck is trying to do.

To fill out my Good 0-cost cards, Watchful Gargoyle was basically the only other 0-cost card that seemed to fit with what I wanted. Because there were no other 0-cost cards I wanted, I decided to try playing with only 27 Good cards. The only card that absolutely needs loyalty 2 in the deck is High King, so we’ll see what happens.

While I built my deck to be able to fly above/ignore a defending Sea Titan, I still needed a way to deal with an attacking Sea Titan. Enter Lying in Wait (Watchful Gargoyle to an extent too). Ideally, I am able to generate enough value and incremental threat that 1 for 1 trading with Sea Titan isn’t too detrimental for me.

With 9 Sage cards currently, in order to maximize my 0-cost card count, I needed to included at least 1 more 1-cost card. Without enough Sage commitment to bring loyalty 2 cards like Ice Drake, there weren’t any other Sage cards I really wanted. So, I fell back on Ancient Chant. For 0-cost cards, I wanted more 0-cost champions so I decided to try Ogre Mercenary. Hasty Retreat was a very close second and might be more correct. I also still wanted 1 Amnesia, just in case.

Finally, I needed to decide on my final Wild cards. I settled on double Lightning Storm as a way to finish off games. Ideally, I’ll be able to out value my opponent and slowly pressure them down until they die, but Lightning Storm is a nice way to push that final damage through, especially against decks with little to no health gain.

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. (35.5)
Reliable (33): 3 Blue Dragon, 3 Memory Spirit, 3 Lying in Wait, 3 Ancient Chant, 2 Ogre Mercenary, 1 Amnesia, 3 Inner Demon, 3 Banishment, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 White Dragon, 3 Watchful Gargoyle, 3 Priestess of Angeline
Unreliable (5 x 1/2 = 2.5): 3 Angel of Mercy, 2 Lightning Storm

20 0-cost Cards (20)
3 Forcemage Apprentice, 2 Ogre Mercenary, 1 Amnesia, 3 Guilt Demon, 2 Fireball, 3 White Dragon, 3 Watchful Gargoyle, 3 Priestess of Angeline

20- On My Turn Cards (17)
Champions (11): 3 Blue Dragon, 3 High King, 3 Avenging Angel, 2 Rampaging Wurm
Events (6): 3 Inner Demon, 3 Banishment

33+ Primary Alignment Cards (27)
3 Banishment, 3 High King, 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Angel of Light, 3 Avenging Angel, 3 White Dragon, 3 Watchful Gargoyle, 3 Priestess of Angeline

Breaking my own distributions in my first post-Tom’S Epic Constructed Process decklist… I feel like I’ll be drawing enough and holding back enough Good cards that this will be fine for this deck, since High King is the only essentially mandatory loyalty 2 card in the deck. I might be wrong.

3-9+ On-Turn Gold-Punishers (5)
3 Avenging Angel, 2 Rampaging Wurm

3-9+ Off-Turn Gold-Punishers (12)
3 Memory Spirit, 3 Angel of Mercy, 3 Noble Unicorn, 3 Angel of Light

1+ Mass Discard Pile Banish (1)
1 Amnesia

3 Drain Essences or Comparable Health Gain (13)
Reliable (12): 3 Drain Essence, 3 Angel of Light, 3 Avenging Angel, 3 Priestess of Angeline
Unreliable (3 x 1/3 = 1): 3 Angel of Mercy

3-9+ Muse/Thought Plucker 0-Cost Answers (6.5)
Reliable (5): 3 Forcemage Apprentice, 2 Fireball
Unreliable (3 x 1/2 = 1.5): 3 Memory Spirit
1-Cost Answers (3 x 0 = 0): 3 Blue Dragon

Anti-Sea Titan/Bounce Plan
Fly over Sea Titans with a plethora of Airborne champions and push through extra damage with Forcemage Apprentice, Fireball, and Lightning Storm. Rampaging Wurm also challenges Sea Titan on the ground.

Powerful Loyalty 2/Tribute/Blitz 1-cost champions lessens the impact of bounce. In addition, multiple 0-cost champions allow me to maintain pressure even if my 1-cost champions get bounced.

Thoughts/Concerns

I might have too many non-board-advantage granting events: Lying in Wait, Ancient Chant, Drain Essence, Banishment, and Lightning Storm. Along with that, I might not have enough threatening champions, especially against control decks.

I don’t know how I feel about Lightning Storm in the deck as a finisher.

I feel like I might want Hasty Retreat, but I probably have enough health gain to survive a champion slipping through my defenses on occasion. I don’t know how I feel about Ogre Mercenary.

I don’t like having under 33+ cards of my primary faction.

Rampaging Wurm with only 2 Fireballs to clear away ambushed in chump blockers might be too weak. Bellowing Minotaur honestly might work better, although it is weaker to Sea Titan, but I wouldn’t generally want to play either card while Sea Titan is up.

Drain Essence probably isn’t necessary with my other health gain, but there weren’t really any other 1-cost Evil cards I wanted to support my Guilt Demons. This also makes it harder to add the Dark Knights I think I might want.

Turn is interesting for this deck.

I do think this deck should shred aggro/burn decks though. Aside from my Ancient Chants and 35.5 cards that can draw, I don’t have too much resiliency against discard. However, Guilt Demon can banish Psionic Assaults, and I do have answers to Thought Plucker.

I am very interested to see how this deck performs. (It might be bad.)

Deck List

Evil (9)

Slow (3)
3x Inner Demon

Fast (3)
3x Drain Essence

0-Cost (3)
3x Guilt Demon

Good (27)

Slow (9)
3x Avenging Angel
3x Banishment
3x High King

Fast (9)
3x Angel of Light
3x Angel of Mercy
3x Noble Unicorn

0-Cost (9)
3x Priestess of Angeline
3x Watchful Gargoyle
3x White Dragon

Sage (18)

Slow (3)
3x Blue Dragon

Fast (9)
3x Ancient Chant
3x Lying in Wait
3x Memory Spirit

0-Cost (6)
1x Amnesia
3x Forcemage Apprentice
2x Ogre Mercenary

Wild (6)

Slow (2)
2x Rampaging Wurm

Fast (2)
2x Lightning Storm

0-Cost (2)
2x Fireball