When approaching any new meta, I think the best way to get reliable results is to build as low to the ground as possible. New metas tend to be slower, less refined, and easier to disrupt, and aggressive decks take advantage of that with ease. This is especially true when facing down decks with a higher curve, and when I started looking into popular decks a couple months ago, I noticed a glut of builds with 5-, 6-, and 7+-mana cards. So I asked myself: what are the most mana efficient ways to deal damage in the game? What minions have the best power:mana ratio? This build game together fairly naturally from that line of questioning. Fire has excellent burn and damage modification, and Earth has some beautiful creatures with fat, fat bottoms.
Until we get more Avatars, Sorcerer is my bet for best aggro Avatar. Aggro decks typically want to play their minions as fast as possible and flood the board, which means running out of cards and running out of momentum. Sorcerer mitigates that in a very real way. If you can deal 5-10 damage by turn four and then start drawing two cards a turn, your opponent is going to have a long road ahead of them trying to stabilize and win.
Looking at a meta where there were plenty of minions that cost 4+ mana, I want to maximize the number of bodies I can get on the board before that point. , , and then become auto-includes. They come down early and deal tons of damage, but they don't do much besides that. We'll call them Threats. Notably, I'm not including or . They just die to too much, and the chances are high that they get blasted by a Vile Imp or blocked by... literally anything.
, , , and all provide important flexibility while still offering efficient bodies. We'll call them Utility. Their role is to gain advantage by drawing sites, acting as removal, shutting down problematic threats, and waking up Giantess, respectively, all while also providing the ability to soak up damage in a pinch or further threaten life totals when they have nothing better to do. Land Surveyor is an interesting one because it's not mana efficient in terms of damage, but drawing one in the early game does mean that I can start tapping Sorcerer to draw spells as early as possible. They've largely felt good in testing, but I'm experimenting with cutting them to go for more raw damage and utility. In those tests, I'm replacing them with more Kobolds and a couple .
Finally, there's . This is a Finisher that provides both removal and mobility (which this deck desperately wants in the late game). In the end game, it can be hard to ensure you have a minion on top of the enemy Avatar to deal direct damage, and Bull Demons makes this a lot easier. Being able to move multiple squares in a turn is huge. It having only 5 power isn't great, but I haven't yet found a curve topper I like better.
With a solid suite of minions, it's up to the magics to provide a little bit of extra reach. Direct damage is borderline a requirement in any deck, since it allows you to end the game once the opponent is on Death's Door. is perhaps the best option for direct damage, but without access to air, you have to settle for something like or . In this case, I've chosen the former for its ability to deal more damage on a critical square. The two steps requirement is rough, but it also gives some flexibility that a projectile doesn't have. This may be the wrong choice, but I'm sticking with it for the time being.
is one of the best removal cards in the game. Choosing to run it is easy. In this deck, is essentially just removal. When your opponent has a big threat or a blocker that's going to start chewing through your minions, Infiltrate is there to clear the way. It also doubles nicely as a way to deal a Death Blow.
is just about self-explanatory. It's extra card advantage, and I don't care what my life total is anyway. Four mana is rough, so timing is critical.
I used to run two , but I'm experimenting with splitting it with . Blaze provides extra movement for the end game, helping you get closer to the opponent's Avatar to deal a Deal Blow, but it can also just be the Death Blow itself. Removal, mobility, and direct damage. What's not to like? Leap Attack leans more into the removal side, but it also allows a Unicorn or Giantess to attack twice, which can bring your opponent to Death's Door near instantaneously.
Notably, I'm not running a single copy of . I think Common Sense is an incredibly powerful card, and most decks playing any ordinaries should play it. In this case, I think it's just too slow, and the slots are jam packed already. Not running Common Sense could be wrong, but I haven't desperately missed it yet. We'll see how I feel about that by the end of Season 4.
You might be thinking, why dilute an aggro strategy with ramp? The answer is simple: the more mana you have without having to play sites, the faster and more reliably you can win the game. Some people question playing in a two-element deck, but I think it's an auto-include. When you get it early, it takes over the game, allowing you to play a Bosk Troll and a Vile Imp on turn two or a Slumbering Giantess and a Quarrelsome Kobolds on turn four. Even when you draw it late in the game, it enables match-ending mana efficiency. When you cap out at five sites, a Stone means you can play a Unicorn and Leap Attack with it right away. Or you can Pact with the Devil digging for a Bury. The same logic applies to the Cores, though their impact is slightly less busted.
The Mixes are particularly strong in this deck, even and especially in the late game. Once you start tapping Sorcerer to draw a card each turn, it's easy to build up a solid grip of cards, and the Mixes help you unleash them when the time is right. A and five sites means you can play Bull Demons and burrow a Root Spider on the same turn. A means a turn two Unicorn right up in your opponents grill, or a free Bury on a turn where you also need to produce threats. Mana advantage is good. Play it.
In my estimation, the most important deckbuilding choices you make in this game are those in your Atlas. You need to balance threshold reliability and utility. Some of the choices in this deck are obvious. is necessary to get fire and earth cards online ASAP. can gain you some life in a pinch or hose Deathspeaker. isn't exciting, but it provides critical earth threshold, and it gets you a dude when you don't have a turn one play. That can be especially important when playing against . An opponent wasting an attack or a card on a foot soldier is exactly where you want to be.
Cards like and are also necessary for threshold, but we can leverage their genesis ability to our advantage. That 1 damage is relevant. It can wake up our best minion, Slumbering Giantess, or it can hit an opposing minion and enable a Bosk Troll or a Unicorn to punch above their weight class. You want to be very intentional about how and when you place Deserts. Sometimes, though, you have to play a Desert and not take advantage of it. That's why I include one . It lets you wake up a Giantess off a previous Desert, but it can also stack a meaningful amount of damage in the mid- to late-game.
gives us better positioning for a Death Blow Minor Explosion and also allows us to target a burrowed Root Spider with an Explosion or an Infiltrate. , , and also give us more agency over positioning, letting us attack from different angles and play up in the opponent's grill unexpectedly. This is both controversial and risky, but I think playing Imperial Road turn one can be a valid play when done carefully. Giving your opponent extra mana early in the game is dangerous, but this deck can make better use of the early mana than many others. On the play, an Imperial Road means you can play a Bosk Troll and start swinging for three on turn two. Add a turn two Unicorn or Giantess, and you're dealing a lot of damage very quickly. Rift Valley and Cornerstone let you sneak up on your opponent while also disrupting their site placement. Against most decks, this is good, but against Pathfinder, it can be back breaking. If an opponent is playing in their back row, splitting their sites with a Rift Valley forces them to choose a side of the board to develop, letting you pressure whatever side goes unprotected. You can also use it to push a blocker out of the way or push an attackable minion into the line of fire. Super good. If you can't tell, I'm a huge fan of Rift Valley. It might just be the best card in the deck.
is mostly here as insurance against and , which present major tempo shifts if not played around carefully.
Finally, is just extra utility. It can be an extra Rift Valley, Imperial Road, Desert, or Pillar of Zeiros. All situational, but all useful. You don't feel too bad playing Mirage just as a fire source if needed.
This deck wants to pressure the opponent's life total as early as possible. In your opening hand, look for ramp, Bosk Troll, and a Giantess or Unicorn. Bosk Troll can be subbed out for Vile Imp, especially if you're on the draw and expect the opponent to play something like a Land Surveyor in the second row on turn two. As for sites, just be careful about threshold. Unicorn needs two earth, which isn't always trivial with the sites as is. I'm always happy to see a Desert, a Rift Valley, or a Steppe. If you draw a utility site that you want to hang onto, it's okay to draw a site or two on your first couple turns, but only if you are able to put pressure on the board while doing so.
Use Rift Valley and Cornerstone to get your minions near an undefended enemy site, and send Root Spiders out to occupied sites to shut down blockers. When possible, save your Minor Explosions for a Death Blow. They can be used as removal, but that isn't their primary purpose. Depending on how the board is looking, you can stop playing sites once you have four or five, but don't underestimate the power of drawing a site in order to shut your opponent out of a corner of the board. Once you've stopped playing sites and spent a couple turns building your hand, it's okay to move up to six or seven sites, but only if you feel good about the amount of pressure you're applying or if you sense you need to start unloading your hand to end the game.
This deck does a lot in the first four turns, but you can hit some road blocks when your opponent starts getting their engine going too. The hope is that you've dealt around 10 damage by then and can deal the remaining 10 here and there before they're fully able to stabilize. If you have the opponent on the back foot, be careful not to over-extend. When you're applying pressure and your opponent isn't dealing with it, you don't need to keep playing minions, and you don't need to burn removal just because. Instead, keep a full grip of cards and prepare to unload them after your opponent plays , , , or other mass removal.
Kilnhouse Aggro isn't without its weaknesses, but it feels like a solid deck, and I've felt good in matches against Deathspeaker, Battlemage, Pathfinder, and more. It's well-rounded and can close games quickly. Have fun!