I’ve been tinkering with this Fen & Crowbar list since Altered’s release, so I was thrilled to be able to take Lyra into the top cut with it at Gamers Guild Arizona’s Altered Grand Tournament.
The deck
The last time I played this deck.
This build positions Fen & Crowbar as a midrange tempo deck. The goal is for your well-statted characters to fight for early advances while using efficient removal to trade up and close out the game. Fen & Crowbar’s hero ability offers staying power against late-game decks while being able to flexibly convert value into tempo by spending resources from reserve.
The deck is based around the premise that the most unfair thing Fen & Crowbar can do is cheat cards with the “anchor target character with hand cost 3 or less” support ability directly into your reserve. The ideal targets are Cernunnos (F) and a multi-boosted Anansi (C) for large stats or Aloe Vera (F) to double-down on Fen’s hero ability.
I’ve opted to mitigate the randomness of your draws and resupplies by making sure that every card in the deck is one that I’m happy to see at any point in the game, whether it ends up in my hand or in reserve. This is in contrast to other successful lists that include from-hand effects and spells that are cheaper from hand, but prioritize Ouroboros Inkcaster (R), Hathor (C), and Flamel (F) to ensure your cards end up where you need them.
Uniques
My suite of uniques prioritizes removal effects with the potential for large tempo blowouts while also putting my opponent down on resources.
Each of them requires you to spend a card from hand or reserve, which is a much lower cost here due to Fen’s passive card advantage. They all have arrow abilities, so they’re still active even if they’re resupplied.
The reactive nature of these uniques is one of the reasons I’m running fewer copies of interaction spells like A Cappella Training (C), Paint Prison (C), or Off You Go (F). It’s also their main downside: their high costs allow careful opponents to wait until you’ve gone below 4 mana to play their most valuable characters.
Gamers Guild Arizona deserves a shout-out for making Altered singles accessible before the marketplace is live. I purchased the digital copies of Cernunnos (U) and Amahle, Asgarthan Outcast (U) from them for $50 and $20, respectively.
Cernunnos: 7/7
This Cernunnos can singlehandedly win games when it hits a 3-drop that was played from hand. It has good enough stats that I’m not even too disappointed if it hits a fleeting 1 or 2-drop. It’s at its best when you can set it up as the final play of the day to add stats to win one expedition while removing a character to flip the other expedition, resulting in a 2-0.
Alice: 7/7
Eerily similar to the Cernunnos (U) above, I’ve decided this Alice’s differences are all advantages. Most importantly, the “cost” of a card from hand can let you put a Kodama (F) or The Hatter (C) directly into reserve to trigger their support ability and anchor a 3-drop. It’s an Alice, so it’s not fighting for a common/rare slot. I’ve even occasionally found myself in situations where I wanted to use the support ability.
Amahle, Asgarthan Outcast: 6/7
It’s incredibly useful to have a card in the deck that can deal with any object. In practice, this one’s high mana-cost can severely restrict what it’s able to target and usually forces you to concede an expedition if played on curve. It’s redeemed, however, by the fact that you can play it as the first action of your turn to remove a permanent like The Monolith, Ordis Bastion (C) or an anchored/asleep/eternal character like Hydracaena.
Matchups
Overall/Bravos
In my experience, this build has a good matchup against many of the fair decks. Your large 3-drops outsize most single characters, your removal spells can deal with anything larger, and you’ll outcard them if the game goes long. This includes the Bravos heroes, for example, unless they get off to a ramp-heavy start and can use the mana advantage to make your removal less productive.
Muna
The deck is heavily favored against Muna, which relies on going big with cheap characters, making them extremely vulnerable to removal. Anything they anchor can be countered by Twinkle, Twinkle (C) or Cloth Cocoon (C). Meanwhile, they have little in the way of hard removal themselves, so you’re able to roll out your threats with little hesitation.
Ordis
Sigismar & Wingspan are tough for Fen because their go-wide gameplan is resilient to removal while they can slow-roll Teamwork Training (C) to hit your premium 3-drops. I’ve tried to tune the deck for this matchup in particular by making it character-heavy with more balanced-statted characters. The decks that run The Monolith, Ordis Bastion (C) are manageable thanks to Cloth Cocoon (C), but it’s still challenging to win against low-to-the-ground builds with Baba Yaga (F) and Ozma (C) since it becomes impractical to fight them on resources.
Clearly Waru & Mack are very strong, particularly the more aggressive variants, but Fen at least has a reasonable matchup. I would have considered dropping one Cloth Cocoon (C) from the list if it weren’t so critical for dealing with Robin Hood. My uniques that discard 3-drops are especially well-positioned here since Waru’s 2 and 3-drops are vulnerable both on turn they’re played and the turn after. Hitting a Quetzalcóatl (R) is ideal, but Thoth, Ordis Attorney, and Monolith Legate are excellent targets as well.
Axiom
It’s possible for the deck to get outvalued by a quick Treyst & Rossum player who sees their Haven, Bravos Bastion (F)s early, but you can often get off to a fast enough start while they’re still setting up. My build fares worse than your typical Fen due to not including a full set of A Cappella Training (C).
Yzmir
Fen’s worst matchup is against Yzmir, and my character-centric build suffers in particular. Afanas & Senka is winnable if you manage to remove enough of their boost targets and tempo them out of their card draw, but Akesha & Taru are able to play in a way that makes it almost impossible for you to safely anchor any of your 3-drops. The uniques are liabilities against Yzmir control since there aren’t many targets you’re thrilled to remove, and the discard is negligible when they can easily refill their hand. If I had more time and access to different uniques, this is the matchup I would have tried to shore up.
Lyra
In the Fen mirror, I usually find that I’m the aggressor since going lower on A Cappella Training (C) and sabotage effects makes me less able to wage a resource war. While the matchup can sometimes come down to whose cards end up where, my removal-on-a-stick uniques usually make me slightly favored, given how important it to stick 3-drops. The mirror is one of the primary motivations for including one copy of Small Step, Giant Leap (F); I’m at a huge disadvantage if my opponent has it as an out but I don’t.
Swiss portion
The 53-player event was run as 6 rounds of best-of-three swiss with a cut to top 8. Rounds were 60 minutes long, which was a good call, especially for the Waru mirrors.
It was a long day, and many of the games blended together, so apologies to any of my opponents if I left out any important details or got anything flat-out wrong.
Round 1 (2-0): Treyst & Rossum permanents reserve
In G1, I kept an Aloe Vera (F) to progress on T1 and anchor on T2. My opponent’s starting hand didn’t offer them many ways to get cards into reserve, and they struggled to accumulate counters. With no Haven, Bravos Bastion (F) in sight, my characters consistently outsized theirs. There was a critical turn where a Paper Herald (F) support ability let me edge out a day.
My opponent got off to a stronger start in G2 with an early Haven, but they had similar trouble cycling cards from reserve. I had the Cloth Cocoon (C) in hand for the Haven but figured I had a better chance to win by winning early progressions, saving Cloth Cocoon (C) for a character from reserve, and preventing the game from going long.
I landed an anchored Aloe Vera (F) on T2, which I managed to reanchor twice due to some very lucky resupplies. My Alice (U) from hand found a solid target, though my opponent patiently waited to sabotage it in order to create a window for them to drop their unique Anansi (U). This one boosted for the 5+ cards in each player’s reserve and swung an expedition I thought I had solidly locked down. I didn’t have any removal for it, but I was able to give it fleeting with A Cappella Training (C), leaving them low on powerful plays to the board.
They only drew into more permanents in the final turns of the game, letting me close it out just before their hero ability had come online.
Round 2 (1-2): Waru & Mack aggro
In G1, I got off to an early lead while being able to anchor an Aloe Vera (F). Ahead on expeditions, a resupplied Amahle (U) did some work here: he disrupted a bureaucrat of my opponent’s, and I was more than okay with only winning one expedition on the turn I played him. I was actually nearly out of steam by the end of this game, but a Kodama (F) resupply let me narrowly win a region against a Thoth (C) on the last day I felt I was advantaged.
I was thrilled to keep a Cloth Cocoon (C) and draw and resupply into the others pretty early into G2, but my opponent didn’t draw into any Robin Hood (R)s or other high-priority targets. This actually made my turns very awkward since being flooded with interactive spells forced me to trade down with inconsequential bureaucrats or targets that already had fleeting. Drawing into no well-statted plays on the final turns of the game forced me to play out Amahle (U) for minimal value, and my opponent took a decisive win.
I found G3 the most interesting. The cards were stacked against me, as my opponent saw two Robin Hoods, and I didn’t find any Cloth Cocoons. Still, Cernunnos (R) and Anansi (C) were strong enough single plays that I didn’t fall too far behind, even on the double-tax turn.
I look back to the opening hand where I kept a 3-drop instead of two 1-drops as the second player. I was afraid of having to trade against a 2-drop bureaucrat and Ordis Trooper, but my opponent ended up just sleeping a Thoth (C), meaning I missed an opportunity to go 2-0 on T1. Due to my opponent’s two Robin Hoods, my hand was overflowing with cards I couldn’t afford to play, so it’s not as though keeping the 1-drops would have left me too low on resources.
I also noticed a misplay where I placed my T1 Aloe Vera (F) in the expedition that was not facing the asleep Thoth (C). Knowing that a likely T2 play would have been replaying the Aloe Vera (F) and anchoring it, I should have placed it on same side as Thoth. My opponent would almost certainly place their two Ordis Recruits in the non-Thoth expedition to balance their threats. Aloe Vera would block their combined 2/2/2 but let the 3/3/2 Thoth through, so it wants to be played in the non-Thoth region on T2. Advancing the non-Thoth expedition on T1 means a 50% chance that water doesn’t matter there on T2 whereas leaving it as the starting region means that my Aloe Vera’s 4 in water would still be relevant. As it turned out, water wasn’t present in the flipped region and Aloe Vera was the best T2 play available to me, so my misplay at best gave them a window to sleep a T2 Robin Hood and at worst put me behind by one region.
On the critical turn of the game, we were both two progressions away from victory, and I was leading both expeditions. My opponent’s final play was The Sandman (F) to sleep and double-boost a Robin Hood in a losing expedition while putting them ahead on the other. That left us tied at one progression from victory, but I had no way to overcome a 5/4/4 advantage through a Robin Hood tax on the following turn.
Small Step, Giant Leap (F) was live for the win, but it wasn’t among my draw or resupply, and I lost the final day.
Round 3 (2-0): Waru & Mack control
This Waru had a heavy control build with Issitoqs and fewer 1-drops, which I consider myself favored against due to the juicier Cloth Cocoon/Amahle (U) targets.
In G1, I got off to a quick 2-0 lead on T1 and not long after that anchored an Aloe Vera for persistent stats and card flow. Due to my significant lead, my opponent felt pressured to start playing bureaucrats awake which held me back for one or two days but severely limited their power on the following turns. An Issitoq slowed me down but couldn’t stop me from taking one expedition per day. Once they stopped getting daily Ordis Recruits, my characters outsized theirs, and I pushed through the final advancements.
The second game started similarly. My opening hand wasn’t quite as fast, but my opponent’s looked very unlucky, as they had to fully pass their first turn. They started behind again as a result, but had several strong turns, including a double Quetzalcóatl into my anchored Aloe Vera for six 1/1/1s by noon. Still, I didn’t mind conceding the day by anchoring another Aloe Vera for the following turn.
In the mid-game, they made a gambit to play an Issitoq unslept in an attempt to lock out a previously anchored Aloe Vera and swing an entire day. Unfortunately for them, I had an Anansi (C) with four cards in reserve which still let me 1-0 them.
They were able to slow me down and even narrow the gap with more well-timed Issitoqs, but I closed out the game by playing Amahle (U) against their last one to simultaneously turn one expedition back on and go up 5 in stats in the contested region for a 2-0.
My opponent was definitely in a tough spot both games, but I think they could have afforded to continue sleeping bureaucrats for longer than they did. Conceding expeditions when I’m already two or three regions from victory looks scary, but it’s possible to hold me at one; without slept bureaucrats, Waru gives up his outs to win: his control tools and his 1/1/1s for board pressure.
Round 4 (2-0): Teija & Nauraa low-to-the-ground aggro
My opponent this round had a particularly aggressive Teija list, which I think is a fantastic way to build for her. Their deck was capable of going wide to make individual targets unappealing to removal, and would only apply boosts when they were confident they would stick.
In G1, they got slightly ahead in the early game, then totally blew me out on one turn with a 5/5/5 Lyra Thespian (F) on the side I had dedicated my Anansi to while an anchored character took the other side.
I couldn’t stop them on both sides every turn, so they got within one region of victory. The only upside for me was that they had to go very low on resources to sustain their level of pressure.
As they built up both sides evenly, I thought I was squarely ahead until they played their last card, a Nurture (C) from hand with 3 mana. That tied up the board, forcing me to deploy a threat on each side with 4 mana left or lose to the Nurture from reserve. Although I didn’t have plays that could block on both sides, thankfully I had drawn my Alice (U) which simultaneously grew one side out of range and removed a character on the other side to let me go 2-0. The fact that it discarded hurt especially, since it put them in top-deck mode.
I was still at least two turns from victory, but they conceded due to the Alice (U) face-up in reserve.
My opponent got off to an early lead again in G2. The Teija matchups blended together in my memory, but I think this was the game that I responded to a self-anchoring character with a Cernunnos to contest, hoping I would force them to spend additional resources to trade. Instead, they 1-0’d me with a Physical Training (F). I’ve already written about getting blown out by this sequence on two separate occasions out of Bravos, so I’m a bit embarrassed to continue making the same mistake.
Amahle (U) is usually an all-star against the greedier Teija decks, but I felt compelled to use him on unimpactful characters just to trade expeditions two turns in a row. This was in part because playing other cards would have resulted in me wasting a bunch of cards due to reserve size. Although Amahle still attacked their resources, tapping out allowed them dedicate minimal resources to win the other expedition.
Once again, they pushed their lead to one progression from victory with a Lyra Thespian (F). My hand awkwardly had no way to block two reasonable characters and the Thespian on both sides the following turn, but miraculously, I resupplied into a Tinker Bell (F) as the first player. I snap-played it to sabotage the Thespian from reserve, which left my opponent with only one card in hand and one character in reserve, their curve completely thrown off. I was able to close out the game purely on resource advantage.
Round 5 (2-0): Teija & Nauraa Hydracaena ramp
My opponent led with an incredible Sneezer Shroom (U) with an arrow ability to self-anchor and an at-dusk trigger to draw a card if boosted. This single unique drew them four cards after being played on T1 and T3. Instantly, my hopes for out-resourcing this Teija vanished. Combined with a Tiny Jinn on T2, they fell behind on expeditions early but were 1 mana ahead of me with a seemingly infinite hand of cards.
When they dropped a Hydracaena (R), I started to worry once I took stock of the situation: the Hydracaena was untargetable with Cloth Cocoon, a surprise Twinkle, Twinkle was impractical due to tough scaling with plants, and Amahle (U) was in mana. I ended up conceding the side entirely as it grew over 4 turns.
I fought to get within one progression, but on the turn they played a non-fleeting Sun Wukong (U) that distributed 2 boosts whenever another character entered, I realized I couldn’t stop them from taking both expeditions to tie me at one progression.
At 11+ mana, I looked at my face-down cards in mana, counted fewer than ten cards in my dwindling deck, then anchored an Aloe Vera in the losing expedition: Small Step, Giant Leap (F) or bust.
I had three chances at it and, sure enough, flipped it over as the Fen resupply. My opponent was the first player, but they had no sabotage, and I played Small Step to squeak out a victory.
In G2, I led with a Cernunnos, but they landed a T1 Tiny Jinn for early ramp. They played the Sneezer Shroom (U) for more draw the following turn, and the best I could do was A Cappella Training (C) it to keep them at +2 cards instead of +4.
I maintained a lead in expeditions, but they steadily closed the gap when the boost-giving Sun Wukong (U) got played and replayed.
In the late-game, I made a careless mistake by dedicating a character to the expedition where I already had a greater lead. They played their Sun Wukong (U) which self-boosted and lost fleeting to the other expedition. I completely miscalculated that my Cloth Cocoon wouldn’t be able to hit Sun Wukong and that its boosts would give it just enough stats to block me even if I Cocoon-ed the other fleeting character in that expedition. The monkey wreaked havoc the next day as well, and it was all I could do to bring the game to tiebreakers.
Fortunately, my draw, resupply, and an Aloe Vera resupply all gave me cheap characters and cost-reduction abilities while my opponent’s best play from hand was a Hydracaena (R). I dumped my entire hand and reserve for massive stats, while their Hydracaena was understatted, and Sun Wukong couldn’t do much damage without characters to play alongside it. I decisively won in all three biomes in tiebreakers.
Round 6 (2-0): Teija & Nauraa ramp and draw
This Teija shored up their card disadvantage in the matchup by playing Daughter of Yggdrasil (R) along with Kitsune (C). Because of the Fen resupplies, I never needed the extra resources, and I only remember the card selection being immediately beneficial once in the match.
My opponent led both games with a Tiny Jinn (U) that had a powerful effect keying off of three or more characters, but that they were happy to play just for early ramp each time.
My tempo gameplan with safe Aloe Veras and boosted Anansis kept me ahead, but the game swung on a resupplied Alice (U) discarding an Aloe Vera that would have been reanchored with a Muna Caregiver from reserve.
I had a tougher time in G2, in particular when a Teija-boosted Daughter of Yggdrasil (R) 1-0’d what I expected would be a safe Cernunnos play. My opponent also surprised me with a Cloth Cocoon (F) to swing a day.
I was still narrowly ahead going into the late game, and a The Hatter (C) played in a favorable region combined with Muna’s limited removal forced my opponent to Beauty Sleep (C) it just to not lose. I had another Hatter in hand, however, and playing it out on the following turn gave me an insurmountable lead to close out the game and secure my spot in the top eight.
Top 8
The top 8 at this event was made up of five Warus and three Fens.
Top 8 (2-1): Waru & Mack aggro
This was a rematch against Liam (donut), the Waru player who I lost to in R2 of swiss. Liam shared an observation with me between rounds that it may be correct for Fen to choose to be first player in the matchup if given the option. If Waru is going first on T2, playing Robin Hood risks running it into a 4-mana Cloth Cocoon and starting the next turn without a bureaucrat. Additionally, if Waru is sleeping a bureaucrat on T1, it matters less for Fen to know which expedition it’ll be placed in.
I got off to a quicker start in G1 and maintained the lead throughout. I had a Small Step in hand to close out the game, but I was ahead by enough that I think I had a good chance of winning on board regardless.
My opponent earned a point in favor of their theory in G2 by choosing to go first and then safely sleeping a Robin Hood on T2. While the tax wasn’t relevant on the turn it came down, the tax throughout the following turn and the opportunity to play it from reserve as the second player on T4 was enough to put them considerably ahead. I had chosen to be the second player in G1, but - tail between my legs - opted to go first in G3.
In G3, I kept an opener of Cloth Cocoon, Small Step, and Hathor (C). Hathor’s reserve ability isn’t as useful in my build of Fen, but her ability earned her spot by recovering a Teamwork Training (C)-ed Anansi to prevent my reserve from overflowing.
They had a strong mid-game, but I drew into both my Alice (U) and Cernunnos (U). The slow-rolled Alice (U) sniped two non-fleeting bureaucrats on consecutive turns, leaving them very low on resources. When I was two advances away, they had to play all their characters awake. My Small Step let me feel secure knowing I just needed to win one side, but Cernunnos (U) ended up flipping one side and overpowering the other for a 2-0 win on board.
Semifinals (1-2): Waru & Mack aggro
I’m glad this match was filmed because details from the top 8 are the foggiest for me, and I’d love to rewatch it with a fresh perspective.
In G1, I remember having a slow start that couldn’t answer a T2 Robin Hood and feeling on the back foot for most of the game. Despite my conversation with my previous Waru opponent, I also appreciated this opponent’s “just run it out” attitude towards Robin Hood on T2: if I don’t have the answer, they’re massively ahead; if I do, the game continues.
In G2, my opponent - who was thinking about but hadn’t seen Small Step from me yet - slept two Robin Hoods on a turn to let me get within one advancement of victory rather than playing one unslept to keep us both at two. Their play let them triple Robin Hood as the first player on the following turn to essentially guarantee a win, but I think they would still have been heavily favored had they played one Robin Hood awake. I did have the Small Step in hand, and playing it (for 9!) to win the game felt like cheating. I’m still unsure if it’s more courteous to let my opponent play out their turn or to reveal the Small Step as soon as I’m certain there’s nothing they can do to interact with it.
In one of the games, I made a cute but somewhat dubious play of sleeping my own Aloe Vera in a winning/blocking expedition to turn it into a losing/not-blocking expedition. My line of thinking was that (1) Aloe Vera was in a water-only region so I’d likely still secure the progression the following turn, (2) my opponent would move from a forest-mountain region into the water-only region, so I might just be postponing Aloe Vera’s block, and (3) every resupply matters. The play had very little friction because I didn’t have another meaningful character to play and I didn’t think there was an opposing character that would be advantageous to sleep.
I’m happy with my play for the most part but made a major blunder at the end of G3. My opponent was 2 advances away from victory and had a double-boosted Ordis Trooper (R) waking up in a water-mountain expedition. I played a Tinker Bell (F) in the same expedition, leaving me with 4 mana. What was going through my head was that this would keep up enough mana to play my Cernunnos (U) from hand to remove the Ordis Trooper for a massive swing. If, on the off chance, my opponent had a Robin Hood, 4 mana was exactly enough to remove it with Cloth Cocoon.
The obvious consequence that I failed to consider was that, in this world, my Tinker Bell play left me with a losing expedition and an empty expedition. Their Ozma (C) in reserve could be played to win the empty expedition and the game.
Sure enough, my opponent had the Robin Hood, and I realized I had priced myself into Cloth Cocoon-ing the fleeting Ordis Trooper so as not to lose on the spot. This left me all but certain to lose to the awoken Robin Hood on the following turn. While it’s possible that it’s worth playing assuming no Robin Hood, the safest move would have been to play to the empty expedition to give the line of Cloth Cocoon-ing it at least a chance to win.
Takeaways
Liam (donut)’s observation that Fen wants to be the first player in the Waru matchup was the critical insight of the day. At the very least, going first is much less of a disadvantage than usual.
1-drops make your opening hand much stronger. I went down to 2 copies of Paper Herald (F) at the last minute, which I regretted. There were several matchups where I would have loved to see a 1-drop and 2-drop in the opener but had to settle for a 3-drop on T1 instead.
A Cappella Training (C) felt solid but replaceable on the day. Preventing a key character from being replayed was occasionally valuable, but it strikes me as a card that gets better in multiples: giving a critical mass of characters fleeting runs your opponent out of effective plays. By contrast, if this build grinds its opponent out, it tends to do so more passively than proactively.
Character positioning with anchored/asleep characters and unrevealed regions is critical in a way that I didn’t fully internalize until R2G3 against Waru & Mack.
Thoughts
I highly recommend Lokinox's boss battle to anyone who gets the chance.
I’m proud of my performance and how I’ve tuned the deck against the field, but I’ll be honest: I lucked into some very favorable matchups in the swiss portion, and my powerful uniques carried me through several games.
As a die-hard fan of draft and sealed, I voiced a vote in support of limited events in the vein of Magic RCQs to Justin Parnell. He gave me a thorough response - equal parts grounded and optimistic - that clearly came from a limited fan himself. I won’t paraphrase it here, but I left reassured that the future of organized play is in good hands.
The event was a memorable one thanks to the Gamers Guild staff, the Equinox team members who flew out to be here, and especially the Altered community. I enjoyed talking with every person I met at the event without exception, which speaks volumes about the kind of game Altered is.