The deck
By offering passive card draw to a go-big deck, Atsadi & Surge allow you to liberally play characters and spells that ramp you but put you at a card disadvantage. Where Mana Channeling (C) can leave other heroes out of steam if their large characters are dealt with, Atsadi & Surge can continue deploying threat after threat once they accumulate enough mana.
Since Atsadi’s characters are expensive and his hero ability will draw him into plenty of them, he can afford to shore up his ramp-heavy starts with high-tempo but low-value plays. I’ve included full playset of Bravos Tracer (C) for a boost of fleeting stats and Issun-bōshi (C) to make your first gigantic character an even stronger play.
Uniques
I wasn’t particularly impressed with Bravos’s current 5+ mana offerings, so I spent my unique slots to give my high-cost plays a little more punch.
Son of Yggdrasil: 4/7
This unique further skews Son of Yggdrasil’s imbalance towards forest, meaning it will nearly always double-advance if you can time your expeditions correctly, even if it won’t always block. If you manage to play this from reserve, the fact that one of its double-boosts can target itself as a gigantic character is powerful.
Like any 6-drop, removal can trade up against it. It can be tricky for the 8 in forest to matter on both sides once, let alone twice, which is rough because this one is so much better from reserve.
The Hatter: 5/7
This one’s high cost means it won’t always be able to wait for a target, but it’s stats are still good enough that a ramp deck feels okay running this out in a non-forest region. When this is able to hit something, the swing will be massive.
Edit (2025-01-14): 4/7
There aren’t enough 4+ mana characters seeing play for this to have a target most of the time.
Kaibara, Asgarthan Leviathan: 3/7
Any 8-drop is a tough sell, but at least this one’s 8/7/8 of gigantic stats give it a high chance of 2-0-ing a day if it’s not dealt with. While a set tough number would make this a better play on the final day, this one’s tough X plays better in a ramp deck.
The games
Round 1 (W): Akesha & Taru control
I got off to the ideal T1 start of Mana Channeling (C) into Tiny Jinn (R) to trade expeditions against a Baba Yaga (R). A top-decked Mana Channeling (C) and the Tiny Jinn from reserve left me with 3 extra mana by the end of T2.
Starting T3 on an absurd 8 mana, I played out a Mighty Jinn (C) for more ramp while a self-anchored Parvati (F) into a favorable region let me advance and block.
On T4, I drew into Kaibara, Asgarthan Leviathan (U), which I instantly played for a total of 19/14/19 in stats across both expeditions. Tough 4 made the whale effectively untargetable, so my opponent took the turn off to draw cards.
I played Kaibara again on the following turn. This time, it got answered with a Banishing Gate (C), but a lucky Tiny Jinn (R) off of the resupply let me advance while ramping even further.
My opponent slowed me down with a Sakarabru (R), but my full hand of cards and mana advantage allowed me to make strong enough plays to close out the game.
Round 2 (W): Fen & Crowbar
Issun-bōshi (C) looked great here as it snuck in an early progression while I ramped with a Mana Channeling (C). I had kept a Dorothy Gale (F) in hand knowing I’d be the second player on T2, but my opponent led with a Martengale (C). Dorothy was still my best play, but at least boosting it with the support ability of Issun-bōshi (C) let me progress.
I placed my Dorothy in a way that allowed my opponent to meet me in a forest-only region, which was ideal when I played my Son of Yggdrasil (U) with forest relevant on both sides. They gave it fleeting with A Cappella Training (C) and played out a character, but they best they could do was let me go 2-1.
Kaibara (U) looked great once again, as it blanked my opponent’s first play of the turn while the tough made them unable to interact with it.
Wary of Cloth Cocoon (C) or other removal spells now that the tough was irrelevant, I never ended up replaying the Kaibara (U). Instead, I took advantage of my full hand due to Atsadi draws and played out several three drops. The first was a Haven Bouncer (C) to sabotage their strongest play from reserve. The last was a Mana Eruption (C) that flipped one expedition and won the game.
Round 3 (L): Fen & Crowbar
I led with a Tiny Jinn (R) as the starting player, but my opponent’s Magical Training (F) forced me to pass with a targetless Intimidation (C) in hand. They dropped a Hathor (C) to 1-0 me.
The Intimidate (C) on a resupplied Cernunnos (F) let me 1-0 while ramping with the Tiny Jinn, but they were able to draw even more with a Hathor-ed Magical Training.
I wasn’t able to draw into big characters this game, but my tempo characters let me pull into the lead. Meanwhile, my opponent was winning on the card advantage front, casting more Magical Trainings with Ouroboros Inkcaster (R) and giving nearly every character I played fleeting with A Cappella Training (C).
After taking the early-game to set up, my opponent assembled a very impressive value engine. They anchored an Aloe Vera (U) that boosted for cards in each player’s reserve at noon and, more importantly, removed fleeting from another character at dusk. Alongside two Ouroboros Inkcaster (R)s, even if one was played from reserve, the Aloe Vera could have it lose fleeting so that it would return to reserve and recover a card.
Their strongest single card to return was a 3-hand-cost/5-reserve-cost Kappa (U) with a The Sandman (R) effect if you put a card from hand into reserve, which cost my opponent very little due to their early card draw. The looped Inkcasters recast the Kappa several times for its 3-hand-cost to hold me off in critical regions.
On the key turn, 2 progressions away to their 3, I was losing on both sides: my Haven Bouncer (C) against their 2 Inkcasters and some other character against their boosted Aloe Vera (U). A top-decked Twinkle, Twinkle (F) made for some fascinating lines due to the potential for a double-sleep.
My line, the best short-term option, was to sleep the Aloe Vera (U) and the non-fleeting Ouroboros Inkcaster (R) to go 1-0, putting me ahead at 1/3 on regions but leaving me with a massive uphill battle the following turn. This line was almost reasonable, but I what didn’t realize at the time was that the Aloe Vera (U)’s dusk trigger would let even the fleeting Inkcaster hit reserve and let it return the Kappa (U) to hand.
The best play in retrospect would have been to sleep both of the Inkcasters to go 1-1 and put us at 1/2 on the following day, with them having a 4/4/4 advantage on one side. This would prevent either of the Inkcasters from recurring the Kappa (U), and wouldn’t leave the massive Aloe Vera on the board.
Another defensible but probably still losing option would have been letting the Aloe Vera win while sleeping my character in that expedition for the following turn. I could then sleep a single Inkcaster to keep us at 2/2, or fall behind to 2/1 but either sleep my 2/2/2 for the next turn or just save the back half of the Twinkle, Twinkle (F) for a critical target. Letting the Kappa (U) go back to hand while my opponent is just one region away sounds like a losing proposition, though.
With the line I chose, I did end up going 0-2 on the following day, putting us at 1/1.
On the final turn, my opponent could only play one more impactful character, but I was losing on both sides. I had drawn into a Sakarabru (F) which could get us to 1/2, but the biomes were very awkward. Playing it on one side would would move them into a region where their The Hatter (C) from reserve would beat me. Playing it on the other side - a water-only region for me - would reactivate water for them, turning their Aloe Vera (U) from a blocking play into a blocking and advancing play.
They progressed on both sides, their value engine grinding out the win.
Takeaways
This deck felt like the real deal when I saw multiple early ramp cards.
Ramp in Altered is delayed card draw. If ramping early means you can afford to stop mana-ing sooner, that T1 Mana Channeling (C) gave you access to a card that you otherwise would have put into mana. This perspective came up when I found myself choosing not to mana in R3 against Fen.
Sakarabru has the nice property of being cheaper from reserve than from hand, so you can often get a heroism counter and card draw while spending only 4 mana.
Overperformers
- Mana Channeling (C): This was the card I was happiest to see in my opening hand. Ramping immediately on T1 put me so far ahead.
- Mighty Jinn (C): Knowing card draw was coming later made it easy to choose to ramp with this every time.
- Kaibara, Asgarthan Leviathan: I thought this would be a filler large character, but it’s slightly better than that. If you can play one of these ahead of schedule, it’s somewhere the ballpark of tough 4, and your opponent will have to fight not to get 2-0’d.
Underperformers
- Aja (F): Atsadi expects to benefit from symmetrical ramp more than his opponent, but not by enough to make this worth a rare slot. This felt unplayable against my R3 Fen opponent who cast several Magical Training (F)s.
- Dorothy Gale (R): A proactive 5-drop would have been preferable, since holding onto this on curve locked me into playing it for the heroism counter.
- Sakarabru (F): Bravos can’t run its opponent out of resources as easily as Yzmir, so the board presence I lost by playing a 7-mana 4/4/4 often negated the benefit of moving my opponent’s expedition backwards.