The strategy is pretty straightforward: overwhelm your opponent in the early game with Earth's overstatted minions and then carry your advantage through the mid game with 's mobility and Air's powerful magics.
Even without any Charge minions this deck hits hard and very fast, punishing any slow start or bricky hand from the opponent. Most of my games at the tournament were over before my opponent could manage to do anything meaningful.
Playing the deck requires good fundamentals of the game, especially site and minion placing, and being able to always plan a couple turns ahead with your avatar position.
The main way this deck loses is by being to greedy at the mulligan and bricking on threshold, so try to aim for a smooth hand that has a turn 2 and turn 3 play rather than hyperfocusing on getting a out on turn 3.
Having a good grasp of some of the common play patterns of this deck can help better understand some of the building choices so I decided to include some tips on how to sequence and place your cards better.
-At the cost of sounding too obvious: ALWAYS place an Air site on turn 1, waste a Tower if you have to.
-One of the strongest plays of the deck is to play a double threshold site on turn 1, followed by an Earth site and a Tower to play a 4 drop on turn 3. This is obviously only possible if you open a double threshold site, so don't try to gamble for it.
-Try to to place your Air sites in a V shape, this way you have access to 's ability in as many rows and columns as possible. This is especially important to be able to move again your if needed.
-In the early game it's usually best to cast your minions on top of you so you can fling them the following turn where they are most needed. Later in the game the choice isn't as obvious because you might need your minions in different positions to be able to block and you want to be able to fling itself or to move it and fling something else if needed.
-After you have developed your sites you can start attacking with your avatar, especially if your opponent also has Air sites.
-If you're able to, try to space your non-Ordinary sites to make as bad as possible.
-: this deck doesn't abuse it as much as others because you're casting only 1 spell each turn most of the time, however 's mobility means you can always hit something meaningful with it and it's a great tool to deal the lethal blow.
-: playing a lot of high-statted minions means this card hits extra hard giving less time to the opponent and making healing often ineffective. You can also occasionaly combo it with on the avatar for a surprise OTK.
-: I was originally playing 2 but after noticing that the deck can sometimes struggle against a wide board of small minions I decided to run the full set. It's fine to roll it once and just leave it there but I generally try to have it end up in a spot within reach so that my opponent has to play around it and most importantly can't steal it.
-: the deck really wants to have a turn 2 play and this is the best option after .
-: the best 2 drop available, being able to draw spell instead of site more often really helps offsetting the lack of draw power.
-: an overstatted drop with no draw back is all the decks really wants, the double threshold can sometimes be tricky to handle but it's still worth playing it over the other options.
-: same as except having an Air threshold allows you to keep some hands where you cast it on turn 2 you otherwise would be forced to mulligan. During testing I was convinced the random teleport gave you a good result on average, but at the tournament I was particularly unlucky with the dice so I'm considering as a replacement.
-: I was initally not sold on playing an understatted minion in a deck that just wants to overwhelm the opponent with raw stats but after testing it became undeniable that this card gives excellent support against almost every matchup, even against decks that don't run .
-: I already liked the card on its own but being able to move it around for free just makes it busted, having only 2 health is generally irrelevant.
-: once again an overstatted minion with an hardly relevant drawback.
-: the star of the deck, it's already strong outside of it but combining it with makes it almost unstoppable and forces your opponent to keep feeding it minions to not get their avatar dragged.
-: mostly a filler card since I wanted one more 4 drop, if you get it out very early you can force a situation where your opponent can't stop it from reaching its site but most of the time don't bother trying to get the draw.
-: after the rules changes this card is just too good to not be played in every Air deck that reaches 5 mana.
-: meant to be the 4th but hasn't been amazing so far, could very well be replaced by a .
-: in my opinion one of the most underrated cards in the game right now. At worst it's a 4 power flyer that cycles itself, at best you have mulliganed at the bottom an impactful late game card like or and can trick your opponent into letting you draw it instead of a random card. It's been really helpful in squeezing out a little bit of extra gas in longer games.
-: mostly a filler card but the threshold isn't very hard to get and it can help you find the right card to kill your opponent or deal with a tricky board. It can also set up the bottom for .
-: while it's a tempo loss, being able to have extra copies of , and in the deck without risking to brick on them is worth the 2 extra mana you have to spend. Getting a minion with it doesn't come up often.
-: it just feels necessary to run at least 1 to deal with , , and other pesky cards.
-: a spot removal that can double as artifact hate, it's true that there is a lot of Water going around recently but it hasn't been a problem yet.
-: one of the best Air cards in the game, espacially in a deck full of high-statted minions like this. I realized at the time of writing this primer that I didn't draw a single copy during the tournament.
-: as I said before for I wanted some ways to deal with wide boards, moving the sites around can also be very beneficial since the deck is very focused on positioning.
-: it was initally at 2 copies because I feared bricking on it but I found it to be one of the best cards in the deck. It clears wide boards with no regards for Stealth, can increase your damage to end games faster and it's a great tool to deal the fatal blow.
You want to play as many Air sites as possible while keeping high enough chances to have 2 Earth sites by turn 4. I initially took the ratios from other topping lists, then tweaked them a little because I found the deck can afford to run a low number of no-threshold sites and there are a couple I think are strong enough to justify the risk.
-, , , , : this deck simply can't work without running as many multi-element sites as possible, so to not lose to too hard you need to compensate by not playing many others non-Ordinary sites. Thankfully the deck doesn't really benefit from most of them anyway so it's not a big loss.
-, , : they allow some of the strongest plays in your deck but can end up being wasted because of threshold so I don't play more copies, don't be greedy during the mulligan and get rid of them if you can't arrange a meaningful play without risking to brick on threshold.
-: I don't think I've resolved its ability once during testing or at the tournament but the potential to counter , and seems more valuable than a Foot Soldier.
-: I think the info on the opponent's hand is a little overrated but since I wanted an Air site to play on turn 1 if I don't get a multi-element one this is the only Ordinary option.
-: Charge is the strongest keyword in the game, so of course you wanna play the site that shuts it down.
-: it's often just an Earth site that does nothing but it's always good to have extra insurance against an aggro deck randomly opening nuts and running you down too fast.
-: similar to the extra card can be the difference between a won game and one that gets stolen right under your nose, being the aggressor in most matchups and emptying your hand generally quickly means you won't have to worry too much about having to discard a spell because of it.
-: the strongest site in the deck, why nobody else is playing it is beyond me. You can't be greedy with it in the mulligan but if you open an hand that allows you to use it on turn 2 or 3 while playing on curve you just automatically win. It can also help in the matchup by freeing the way from and or by messing with their threshold.
-: while increasing your chances of reaching double Earth threshold is good and all, risking to draw a site when you need a spell in a deck that is already struggling with card draw isn't worth it.
-: one of the most recent exclusions from the deck, the extra power was often not relevant enough and I was running too many cards that are dead if I don't already have a minion on the board.
-, and other mobility cards: since this deck is heavily focused on tempo I don't want to use extra mana to do something my avatar does for free, with the exception of I rarely find myself in spots where they would be useful.
-: the deck does run a lot of Earth minion but the extra power is often overkill and the minions in this deck don't really benefit from being summoned on your opponent's side of the board.
-, : playing these or is mostly a meta call, right now there are too many and around so I prefer having a single stronger minion. Deck space is also an issue.
-: an auto-inclusion if you're running but not worth playing it with only 1 target in the deck.
-: could be another replacement for to combo with , I didn't have time to test it.
-, : the deck usually just runs over small creatures and doesn't need help in dealing the fatal blow.
-: a possible replacement for , but has the big downside of being very reliant on to be effective.
-: might look fine on paper but not being able to move is a terrible drawback in practice.
-: a strong effect but it's not worth the tempo loss and card disadvantage.
-: the deck doesn't really need to worry about defending itself, playing them on the surface and then flinging them on an enemy an burrowing them can be a cool play tho.
-: it should probably be in the deck over some combination of //, I just despise the mechanic and refuse to spend time to learn how to blow it consistently.
-: it's a 3rd copy of that costs 1 mana more, didn't seem needed and increases the amount of cards that require a minion on the board to be relevant. (Please note that I'm biased by the fact that I kept drawing it when my opponent was already in DD during testing)
-: not being able to control which minion attacks and when is too big of a drawback.
-: the effect isn't needed often and I didn't need other 4 drops but it could replace .
-: ends up being just a clunky removal, the deck doesn't struggle against enough to justify it.
-: I've seen a lot of people say this card is amazing but I have never tested it and I don't really see where the hype is, if you're not really sold on (but you should be) this is the obvious replacement.
-: this is one of the other no-threshold sites I find powerful enought to play in your atlas, unfortunately that would mean giving up on which is just too important.
-: moving it around rarely accomplishes something so I'd rather play more ordinary sites.
-, , , : they can be run over but you can't play them on turn 1 and would rather use all your mana on the following turns.
-: turning off all your removals isn't worth it.
-: This deck only plays a couple of Magics and they're mostly situational so it's hard to arrange plays with it, better to just play more Ordinary sites instead.
-: there aren't many strong sites to copy in the deck.
-: this site ends up being a problem for yourself more often than it is for your opponent, you generally would want to place it right in front of your avatar but that's where you usually need an Earth site.
-: the positional advantage isn't worth running a non-Ordinary site.
He tried his best to stall with and but ended up bricking on double against my .
It was an original build based around Mortals. A slow starting hand put him on the backfoot and then killing , and sealed the deal.
The game was single handedly won by turn 1 completely shutting down Tawny. A well timed also helped in keeping him on the defensive.
She hard bricked on threshold, I'm pretty sure the only spell she managed to cast for the entire game was a single right before losing.
We were both guaranteed in top so we decided to rest for a round and go get some coffee. I ended up being 1st in Swiss since both my round 3 and 4 opponent's made top cut.
I had a shaky start because I struggled to find a 2nd Earth site but my opponent bricked harder. He kept an heavy Air hand hoping to draw a 2nd Air site but didn't draw it until very late after I already hit the first one with .
It's already a very hard matchup for the deck on average hands, but my opponent just made it impossible by opening , double and then drawing plenty of removal while I didn't see the cards I need most. Fortunately it was piloted by my best friend and testing partner @Solaris who ended up winning the whole thing so I didn't feel too bad about it.