beyond-the-gates

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. ...

I brought this deck to the Wednesday A.W.O.L. weekly on 2024-12-11, going 3-3 for 21th out of 48. Today’s event captured all the highs and lows of the deck: to play Nevenka, you have to embrace the fact that some of the games will be decided by the roll of the dice. I ran into an eclectic set of decks on the other side of the table, so even when my deck wasn’t the one going off, my opponents managed to pull off some pretty cool things! ...

I played a tweaked version of my spell-centric Fen deck at the Monday A.W.O.L. weekly on 2024-12-09, going 4-2 for 15th out of 56. The deck The last time I played this deck. I cut the Mighty Jinn (F)s from the previous build. There’s tension between wanting to play them as soon as possible for the ramp and sometimes not being able to go for a 0-stat character without letting your opponent through. As long as the build is running The Hatter (C) as another 4-mana mountain-forest character, I’ve decided there are better ways to use a rare slot. ...

Now that Robin Hood, the main offender of Waru & Mack, is no longer the problem it was on release, I hoped I could bring out Waru without making enemies on the other side of the table. What surprised me was how interesting the hero was to play due to the number of choices he offers over the course of a game. I took this deck to two online tournaments this week. At the Monday A.W.O.L. tournament on 2024-12-02, the deck went 5-1 in swiss for 3rd place out of 59 on strength of schedule. At the ACE Tuesday championship on 2024-12-03, it went undefeated in single elimination for 1st place out of 44. ...

The deck Where my last Fen deck was a character-centric midrange deck, this build aims to be a spell-centric control deck. The spells in question are the in-faction A Cappella Training (C) to starve the opponent of resources, joined by Yzmir imports Magical Training (F) and Off You Go! (F) to outcard your opponent and remove their strongest plays. Abilities that return cards from reserve to hand are a high priority. They allow you to use your reserve as a toolbox to recycle the cards that matter most in the matchup, while also letting you rescue cards that are stronger from hand if they get resupplied from Fen’s hero ability. ...

Changes The last time I played this deck An awkwardness I noticed with the previous iteration of the deck was that it was extremely 3-drop heavy, which made for some inefficient curves. This isn’t trivial to fix, since the deck’s premium common (Ordis Gatekeeper (C)), card draw (Baba Yaga (R)), and removal spells (Teamwork Training (R)/Sticky Note Seals (C)/Kelon Burst (F)) are all fighting for the same slot in the curve. What’s also deceptive is the fact that Ratatoskr (F) is a 3-drop from reserve. ...

The deck The last time I played Nevenka & Blotch, I tried a midrange approach, but the deck was sorely lacking in ways to interact with my opponent’s gameplan. This deck maintains the midrange gameplan but includes more disruption in the form of sabotage and giving fleeting. I’ve cut nearly all of the expensive characters and focused on lower-cost characters supported by several sources of card advantage. As a result, the deck is still aggressive enough to trade early but can plan to out-resource the opponent and stack several low-cost plays for stronger turns in the late-game. ...

The draft For P1p1, I considered A Cappella Training (C) and Teamwork Training (R) but landed on Inari (F) for its efficient stats. I snap-picked Flamel (R) as the strongest card in P1p2 since its tempo-neutral resource advantage has impressed me in previous drafts. A P1p3 Amelia Earheart (R) had me leaning towards Axiom while a Kraken’s Wrath (R) pushed me into Yzmir due to how much better it gets against Sigismar and Kojo. ...

Gulrang & Tocsin’s hero ability offers what I’d argue is the strongest upside among the core set heroes, but it comes with a major drawback. The puzzle they ask you to solve is how to navigate the first five turns when the best cards in your deck prevent you from getting any closer to winning the game. When I started playing the hero, I thought that my task for the early-game was to ignore my own expedition progress and block at all costs. I now believe this approach to be dead-wrong. ...

The deck While Bravos might be playing too fair of a game compared to the other factions, what Basira & Kaizaimon have going for them are mana ramp, Haven, Bravos Bastion (R), and a robust set of commons. This deck tries to double-down on the explosive openings when you can ramp into a position to get maximum value out of your Havens. Bravos Bladedancer (C), Red (C), Ratatoskr (C), and Chiron (C) are staples that make filling out the 21 common slots unusually easy. ...