Xanth's Elementalist Primer

Primary focus: efficient aggro!

This build focuses on taking advantage of Elementalist's threshold bonus to maximize explosiveness from your sites while also allowing you to play a wide spread of strong and aggressively-statted minions. You don't want to trade 1-for-1; you want your early minions to eat theirs and survive, overwhelming your opponent pretty rapidly. You want your plays on the first handful of turns to each be plays that are both ahead-of-curve (a 3 drop on 2 sites or a 4 drop on 3 sites) *and* aggressively statted power for their cost. This isn't the quickest aggressive build I could think of, because such builds tend to be glass swords. This is the most efficiently aggressive build I could think of. Hence the removal of cards like Knighthood- it's not worth losing the card in hand to get a 1-2 cost discount on one of the exceptional knights, and it's not worth playing the 3-4 big drop knights in your deck for that explosiveness when they are probably too slow without the knighthoods; you don't want cards cluttering your hand that you can't play by turn 4, and the odds of getting a knighthood plus a big knight by turn 2-3 are not in your favor with a 50-card deck. The deck's play style is pretty straightforward; you may draw from your site deck at the start of your turn one or two times a game depending on your hand, but beyond that you will almost always want to draw a spell, tapping your avatar to draw a site if you're out of them in hand.

Generally ideal opening hand:

Sites: 1 village, 1 tower, 1 town/tower

Spells: 1 werewolf, 1 banshee, 1 unicorn

This lets you turn 1 play Village into 1 foot soldier, turn 2 play tower in front of village, move foot soldier there, sac it to summon Werewolf there, Banshee there for free, Unicorn there for 3. this gives you two 3/3s and a 4/4 on the board on your second turn.

Deck efficiency ratios:

• Ideal Turn 1 plays: 19 (15 village triggers, Sir Gareth, 3 Werewolves. I've put Gareth and Werewolf in here even though sometimes you just want to play them turn two after moving your foot soldier up to your next site, so that your initial aggressiveness is less telegraphed)
• Ideal Turn 2 plays: 16 ahead-of-curve plays (requires tower or Town, of which you have 15 hits in your 30-card site deck)
• Ideal Turn 3 plays: 13 ahead-of-curve plays (requires a different Tower, or a Town; I've put Black Knight in this category but he will require neither, however can only be played on this turn if you dealt damage to your opponent this turn)

Every card explained:

• Villages: Units on board! Combos very well with Werewolf, Banshee, Sir Gareth, and bodies are bodies. Half of your site deck is villages.
• Dark/Lone/Gothic Towers: The key that allows you to play ahead-of-curve on turn 2 & 3.
• Town: similar to above, but will also reap you more total discounts over the course of the game. Can also create the potential explosiveness of a Vampire (or Black Knight) on turn 3, which is two cost ahead of curve (turn 2 town, turn 3 tower).
• Lady Iseult: Good recovery element, easily protected with all your minions; just play her behind the freight train but nearby.
• Sir Tom Thumb: Constant pressure; gets right back into action, can even be carried (and by some of your airborne units too).
• Autumn Unicorn: a 4/4 for 3 is about the best power to cost ratio you can get early game, outside of conditionally free units.
• Sir Bors: Very well-statted, and with Range 2, he can be your turn 2 play that starts hitting the opposing avatar next turn even if they didn't play a site in front of their starting site. His ability is pretty clutch, too, and completely counters Infiltrate.
• Moon Clan Werewolf: zero cost (though you had to play 1 for the token), also reliable trigger of Banshee.
• Purple/Verdant/Yellow/Blue Knights: 4/2 for 3 that strikes first, heck yeah. You don't lose the Lance if you hit a site, but you don't get the +1 bonus either. Can also summon, drop the Lance, and have someone else there without summoning sickness pick it up to then attack with. This can be pretty clutch, allowing your unit there to kill your opponent's similar, or even greater, power unit, while surviving. This allows your extra 3-drop knights to maintain some extra relevancy as the turns go on.
• Squirming Mass: This guy is nuts. I only suggest playing him if you know there will be a nearby dead unit that turn OR if you have a unit or two that can intercept an attack on him that turn & don't expect direct damage from your opponent OR if you have a Werewolf. One nearby exchange of two units and he's already up to 5-8 power. He gets gigantic incredibly quickly.
• Dalcean Phalanx: 5/5 for 4, or 3 at your Town, sign me up! You just run this dude into their sites or units in front til you put them on Death's Door. Keep in mind he cannot be moved with Tactical Move, but if you got them on Death's Door, you're probably doing just fine, especially if you have a Tactical Move in hand.
• Gyre Hyppogryphs: Charge + airborne is a very deadly combo. Helps hunt down an opponent on Death's Door, too.
• Keening Banshee: Pretty self-explanatory; combos very nicely early with Werewolf on a Foot Soldier token.
• King Arthur: Easy auto-include simply based on stats; ability is a cute bonus.
• Queen Guinevere: Her ability quickly translates into extra damage most of the time. Combo with Gigantism. Lets you double heal with Vampire.
• Sir Gareth: Even better than Werewolf, but doesn't trigger Banshee. Keep in mind his ability requires no mana payment, so you simply just replace a Foot Soldier token with him.
• Witherwing Hero: well-statted and airborne. Great at picking up your lance knights that have already used their lances (or given them to him).
• Black Knight: A 5/3 for 3, or 2 to Town, that you usually cannot play on first 2-3 turns of the game. Still very worth it.
• Daperyll Vampire: Not your ideal power to cost ratio, but airborne combined with that heal trigger are huge and help you a lot versus decks presenting a lot of units.
• Tactical Move: An all-star. Get those extra Foot Soldier tokens into action, set up the perfect Squirming Mass scenario, chase them down on Death's Door, get your Avatar into attack range for an extra damage later on (every bit counts), set up your Witherwing Hero or Lady Iseult right where they need to be, spread your units to attacking different sites if you're worried about Cave-In or something similar, allow for you to spam your exceptional units to your Town and still get them right into action, or, most importantly: allow for your turn two plays to unexpectedly slam into their Avatar's site swinging on turn 3. You can, for example: Turn 1 village & token, Turn 2 tower, move token to tower, sac to Werewolf, play Banshee, play Unicorn/Knight (on their turn 2 they play a site sideways to their starting site to avoid you), Turn 3 village in front of their Avatar, make a token, tactical move to get the 3 heavy hitters punching into their avatar for 10 damage + move your avatar forward two spaces, and the foot soldier token ready to intercept if needed. That is some huge pressure and you're presenting 11-12 damage the following turn (depending on whether it was a lance knight or a unicorn).
• Gigantism: Self explanatory, 6 damage for 4. I would only use it if you're punching their site that turn. Combos with Queen.
• Infiltrate: Both removes their blocker and turns it into a potential final strike unit on a later turn. We are all quite aware of how strong this card is, even with the errata.

Things I didn't add but considered:

• Queen of Midland: Feels like a little too high a resource investment. I would rather spend those resources on a Vampire.
• Crown Prince: Was originally in here, but with how many strong 3-drops this deck has, I felt like I would usually just have a better card to play than him.
• Horn: Giving everyone charge is nice, but ultimately I just want more bodies.
• Grappleshot: it was either this or Tactical Move, and Tactical Move wins out for how explosive it can be in a deck that is putting a lot of minions on the board.

Always open to suggestions and critique!