The deck
This is a midrange deck that primarily tries to win the game by keeping overstatted 3-drops anchored as long as possible but can quickly pivot to a Lyra Festival (F) win if the opportunity arises.
This build maximizes the “put a card from your hand in reserve” part of Rin’s hero ability by including as many instances as possible of the “target character with hand cost 3 or less gains anchored” support ability. If you win in forest early, you can put an anchor support ability into reserve which can snowball into more anchored 3-drops winning future expeditions.
It’s worth emphasizing that a proactive, aggressive gameplan is a key component of a Festival win. Progressing in forest earns you hero ability triggers which draw you into your combo pieces. Securing a board advantage with anchored characters can give you a window to drop the 4-mana landmark without ceding too much ground. Beyond providing a board presence, previously-anchored characters afford you the breathing room to just apply the statuses rather than also having to produce the three characters from scratch.
Lyra Festival is at its best when you can fork your opponent between removing your best-statted character but losing to Festival, or removing the Festival but losing to your characters on board.
Here are my play patterns with Lyra Festival from early testing, roughly in order of success rate:
- Playing Festival on a late-game turn while I’m ahead, then forcing my opponent to deal with both my board and the potential of losing the game outright.
- Starting a late-game turn with enough characters that I can set up the Festival win with very little mana, then dropping the Festival as the final action of the turn.
- Deploying Festival on T2, making every turn from then on a turn your opponent could instantly lose. This approach applies a kind of pressure of its own but is most vulnerable to removal.
One benefit of Lyra Festival is that it allows you to run less removal. If your opponent taps out for a character or permanent that provides them with inevitability, you can “remove” it by winning the game on the spot.
Card choices
- Daughter of Yggdrasil (R): This is your best character for securing progressions in forest. It also helps you draw into elements of a Festival win, but be aware that the symmetrical draw can often help your opponent find ways to counter your Festival.
- Aloe Vera (F): The ability to self-anchor makes it more likely that you have a good target for an anchor support ability at any given time. The resupply has a solid chance at putting one of those support abilities into reserve. It also shores up the deck’s weakness in water. Just be careful about winning in water but not forest, thus forfeiting an activation of your hero ability.
- Coppélia (F): This is a premium card to put from hand into reserve. The timing on Rin’s hero ability works out so that this wakes up immediately and is active the following turn. I would gladly play three copies if I weren’t using one slot for a unique.
- Lyra Festival (F): I started at two copies, but I think I like the third despite not being all-in on the Festival win. At three, I feel comfortable putting them into mana when things are going well on board while still being confident that I can draw into one if the opportunity arises.
- Kodama (C): This helps you get an asleep character for Festival. Even though the rare has the support ability of choice, I’m happy enough playing this from reserve as a 2-mana 3/3/3 that I feel the rare slots are better spent elsewhere.
- Spindle Harvesters (C): While, for Rin specifically, the point in forest isn’t insignificant, this is mainly in here as a 1-mana way to get an anchored character for Lyra Festival.
- Cernunnos (R): It’s important enough to get early forest wins that the fourth point in forest over something like Quetzalcóatl (F) is relevant.
- Beauty Sleep (C): Sleep is the hardest-to-achieve piece of the Festival puzzle. This costing 1 mana means you can save it until you’re certain your opponent can’t disrupt your Festival win.
- The Spindle, Muna Bastion (C): This is worthwhile against Yzmir and Lyra since the deck heavily relies on keeping anchored characters out.
- Mana Reaping (C): I’m including a single all-purpose removal spell because you occasionally need to deal with something that will instantly lose you the game (e.g. The Kadigir, Yzmir Bastion or an opposing Lyra Festival).
Uniques
Cernunnos: 6/7
This Cernunnos is especially strong for Rin, who can advance in forest on T1 to play a Coppélia for free, then play this on T2 to keep it anchored.
Lyra Cloth Dancer: 5/7
It’s common for Muna to start a turn with one or even two characters, in which case the arrow ability provides 4/4/4 in stats that you’re often able to distribute onto anchored characters. It can be more flexible than Nurture (R) in that it provides a body for itself to boost onto.
The desirable line to give fleeting to all characters at dusk would be better on an easily anchorable 3-drop, but it can still wreak havoc on an opponent’s resources for the two turns it’s out. The fact that it distributes boosts makes the body itself a poor target for removal, meaning the at-dusk ability is more likely to trigger.
Coppélia: 5/7
This Coppélia is a very efficient tempo play. If you’re able to play it before another card, it’s a 2-mana 3/2/2 that plays itself for free for a total of 6/4/4 across two turns.
It especially shines in a Lyra Festival (F) deck, where you can play it the turn before you plan to win the game with Festival, thus starting the combo turn with a character that’s both fleeting and asleep.
Takeaways
A Lyra Festival (F) win-con requires actively winning expeditions to secure Rin hero ability triggers. If you’re not cycling through your deck and getting the cards you need into reserve, it’s unlikely you’ll be able assemble all three parts of your Festival win in time (see M1G2).
Lyra Festival (F) can fill the role of removal, one of Muna’s weaknesses. Instead of dealing with a card that’s causing you problems, such as a Brassbug Hive, Grand Endeavor, or Hydracaena (see G6), just go for a Festival win.
It can occasionally be correct to wait to sabotage later on in a turn if you’re able to disrupt your opponent’s sequencing and/or mana allocation. You’re more likely to want to slow-roll sabotage when your opponent has cards with on-play conditions (e.g. Yong-Su, Verdant Weaver, see G5) or when their reserve is full but their hand is near-empty (e.g. against Fen & Crowbar).
The games
Match 1 (2-1): Sigismar & Wingspan
Game 1 (W)
Seeing all three of my uniques gave me a huge advantage this game. Cernunnos (U) smoothed out the early game just by being a card that I could put into reserve for its support ability to get the anchor train rolling.
Coppélia (U) was just a high-tempo mid-game play that let me keep pace with Ordis aggro as they were spending removal spells on my anchored 3-drops.
Lyra Cloth Dancer (U) came down to double-boost itself and a Spindle Harvesters (C), winning an expedition and putting an anchor support ability into reserve. The Cloth Dancer returned on the following turn to turn it into a 5/4/4 that I reanchored thanks to the support ability.
Game 2 (L)
Lyra Festival (F) in the opening hand had me curious to try going all-in on Festival. I kept The Spindle, Muna Bastion (C) after seeing that my opponent’s deck was fairly heavy on removal.
I dropped The Spindle on T1 and Lyra Festival on T2, going 0-4 across both days. On T3, I got my first Rin ability activation but being first player while water regions were active meant my opponent was able to advance twice to get within one progression of victory.
I was missing the sleep component of my Festival win-con but was able to stall my opponent for a turn with overstatted 3-drops. Unfortunately, I didn’t draw into any way to sleep on the following turn and couldn’t keep my opponent from progressing any longer.
Game 3 (W)
I got off to a strong start with large 3-drops that let me win in forest and put anchor support abilities in reserve. They didn’t stick around as long as I had hoped, since my opponent was twice able to sabotage away the support abilities with an Ordis Spy (C).
Cernunnos (U) did some damage in the mid-game, but on the turn I went to reanchor a Daughter of Yggdrasil (R) with it, they played a Kelon Burst (R) on the Cernunnos, then a Teamwork Training (C) on the Daughter.
I was slightly behind going into the late-game, but my opponent seemed to finally be out of disruption, and I started to be able to anchor large 3-drops.
On the final turn, a Spindle Harvesters (C) was the critical second plant for a surprise Yong-Su, Verdant Weaver (C) to be able to 2-0 for the win.
Game 4 (W): Sigismar & Wingspan
After a forest win on T1, I put a Kodama (C) into reserve to set up either an aggressive 2+2 play next turn or a 2+3 play the following turn.
I didn’t draw into a strong play on T2, and since I was the first player anyway, I figured now would be the best time to get down the Lyra Festival (F). With a Spindle Harvesters (C) and Beauty Sleep (C) in hand, a Festival win wasn’t too far off.
I was in disbelief when I drew into a second Spindle Harvesters (C) the following turn.
My opponent had a strong turn of their own, with Ordis Gatekeeper (R) into an Ordis Trooper (U) that Charge!-ed their entire board. Unfortunately for them, they were the starting player, so they couldn’t have reacted to my turn even if they wanted to.
I led with the Kodama (C) from reserve: fleeting. I played a Spindle Harvesters (C) from hand: anchored. I played the second Spindle Harvesters (C) from hand then cast Beauty Sleep (C) on it: asleep. On 5 mana, I pulled off a T3 Lyra Festival win.
Game 5 (W): Sigismar & Wingspan (M1 opponent)
I got off to an aggressive start with a T1 Daughter of Yggdrasil (R). Unfortunately, it drew my opponent into The Frog Prince (C) which let them 2-1 me on the first turn. My win in forest still gave me a draw and put a Coppélia into reserve to be played for free, but they started with a one expedition lead that held as we traded through the mid-game.
On a critical late-game turn, an anchored Aloe Vera (F) held down the fort while facing a water-only region for my opponent. The following turn, a reserve Kodama (C) was the second plant I needed for Yong-Su, Verdant Weaver (C) to be a 5/5/5 to overwhelm my opponent.
On the final turn, I planned a curve of a plant in hand, a plant from reserve, then Yong-Su from reserve. That required two cards from reserve, so I figured if a sabotage disrupted that sequence, I would fall back on Cernunnos (U), my only other card in hand.
I played the plant from reserve, and my opponent didn’t have the sabotage, so I went for the plant in hand. Belatedly, I realized that if my opponent were slow-rolling the sabotage on the Yong-Su, they could leave me with no available plays and force me to pass with 3 unspent mana.
Luckily, I wasn’t punished, and the 5/5/5 Yong-Su was enough to close out the game.
Game 6 (W): Teija & Nauraa
Daughter of Yggdrasil (R) winning in forest on T1 let me play Coppélia (F) for free in a mountain-only region. It lost to my opponent’s growing Dracaena (U) on T2, but Cernunnos (U) won the other expedition while anchoring Coppélia for another turn.
Replaying Cernunnos (U) put me ahead in the mid-game by providing an unfair amount of anchored stats.
My opponent’s anchored Aloe Vera (F) into a water region stonewalled my forest-heavy characters and gave my opponent room to drop a Hydracaena (R). I was ahead by two at this point, but I wasn’t close enough to victory that I liked my chances against an ever-growing Hydracaena. Time to switch gears.
My previously anchored characters meant I didn’t need much to win against the Hydracaena, so I took most of the turn to deploy a Lyra Festival (F). I used a support ability not on a 3/3/3 Kodama (C) but on a 3/3/0 Coppélia because it was already fleeting.
Next turn I immediately reanchored the fleeting Coppélia, then played a Sneezer Shroom (C) and the reserve Kodama to guarantee anchored and fleeting even if my opponent removed any one character. I had a second Lyra Festival in hand if my opponent instead targeted the landmark itself.
Once my opponent finally tapped out of removal, I played a Kodama (C) from hand - my only way to get an asleep character - and won the game at dusk due to Festival.