My best friend @Solaris got 1st place with a very similar list at "War of the Four Elements" in Prato (18 players).
The strategy is the same as it used to be in AL: 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.
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.
Gothic didn't give many new powerful tools to the deck, but helped a lot in increasing its consistency, especially in your atlas. This allows you to be a little more greedy in the mulligan and increases the chances of getting a out on turn 3. Still, try to not gamble since starting smoothly is crucial for the deck.
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 get a 4-drop on turn 3, thanks to and it's now much easier to achieve this than before.
-The main weakness of this deck is that most of your plays require a minion to stick on the field for a turn, so do your best to start ahead and not lose momentum.
-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.
-, and are your best tools to try and win a battle of attrition if your early game wasn't strong enough to snowball into a win; however they're very dependent on your Avatar's ability so you'll need to always be thinking ahead, especially if you have more than 1 on the board.
-: while it's not the powerhouse it used to be and there are many more counters to it after Gothic, the ping effect is much stronger now with all the Wards and tokens going around; AoA's great mobility also allows you to reach a good target most of the time.
-: one of the best new additions to the deck, it allows you to play some very specific answer the deck wasn't able to run main deck in the past; you can find a breakdown of the collection below, but keep in mind it's still experimental.
-: 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.
-: there are a lot of pesky auras this deck doesn't wanna deal with and this removes them while still being an ok draw without targets, plus it can remove the occasional ; just be careful to not remove your own stuff since its effect is mandatory.
-: the best 2 drop available, being able to draw spell instead of site more often really helps offsetting the lack of draw power of this deck.
-: this meta is filled with understatted minions with good effects and this shuts them down while being an excellent 2-drop regardless thanks to Ward, you're also fine with silencing your own minions most of the time.
-: overstatted minions are the core of this deck and this is one of the best, in this list the extra point of attack feels more valuable than having Ward.
-: same as above, except this can be cast on turn 2 with a Tower and can cast , its ability can be both a blessing and a curse but as the game goes on teleporting into a good position becomes more and more likely
-: 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.
-: not as busted as it is in , but it's still a very solid minion and most importantly a Spirit, be careful with its positioning since your opponent can try to force it to move where he wants it.
-: when I saw this card being revealed I thought it would break this deck, unfortunately it turns out that it's too reliant on AoA's ability to be busted; still a very solid new addition.
- and : I felt like the deck needed more 4-drops and these were the best ones, their abilities are generally a bait
-: another overstatted minion, its drawback is mostly irrelevant thanks to AoA.
-: triple threshold is barely consistent enough in this deck, but you rarely need to cast this on curve anyway; it's basically a removal with legs and it doesn't even target.
-: 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.
-: another card that can be bricky but when it comes down it wins the game most of the time.
- and : the best 5 drops currently available, the aggro matchup of this deck is great thanks to them; they also help cast .
-: not sure if this is the right card for the last minion slot but they feel better than most 6-drops and can be cast with ; this deck doesn't really lose to collection stuff so I would prioritize removing movement or removal spells.
-: 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, being able to dig for is very useful.
-: compared to its previous iteration this deck is much more reliant of free movement so having a 2nd activation of AoA can enable some very strong plays.
-: one of the best Air cards in the game, especially in a deck full of high-statted minions like this and this deck needs access to as many removals as it can.
-: the dominance of Water this expansion has made basically unplayable and this is the next best thing in Air/Earth as far as unconditional removal goes; it's definitely not ideal but the deck runs a lot of Spirits and Undeads naturally and AoA's ability sinergizes well with it.
-: I hate this card with a burning passion and I refuse to waste my time learning how to blow the cards consistently, but as said above this deck needs removal.
-: not as good as it used to be with all the Water going around but you won't always be playing against that so I decided to keep it; it also has marginal utility against Water to move targets where you want them or simply when they inevitably step on one of your sites.
-: 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.
-, , , , : 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 other 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.
-: serves a similar function to Towers, but ignoring threshold makes your early plays more consistent; still trying to find the right ratio since the deck isn't full ov Evil minions.
-: another great new addition to the atlas that further increases the consistency of turn 3 .
-: this deck doesn't draw anyway, aside from .
-: Charge isn't as prevalent as it used to be but I don't want to randomly lose to , even if I run 5 Vampires.
-: 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.
-: as said for silencing minions is strong in this meta, especially to remove Wards; can also be used to move your in a pinch.
-: it's hard to meet the threshold but a that gives Air mana feels too good in this deck; having one more Air site to play on turn 1 without being wasted can't be too bad.
-: as said for being able to activate AoA's ability more than once per turn makes this deck insane and comboing this to move something twice allows to reach basically anywhere; try to position it in your backrow so that you can summon minions there without risking them being traded.
Still very WIP, it's hard to evaluate because even the most useful cards only get some action once every few games.
-: the only card here that feels truly necessary, Aura and Artifact hate are both crucial; better than at answering because there are more Ordinary Air sites.
-: could honestly be a but I felt that being able to move Artifacts and enemy minions might be worth not drawing a card; I doubt there's ever going to be a spot where moving an Aura instead of dispelling it is relevant.
-, and : in testing I really felt the need of a good removal in my collection and this is the best I could find; still Undeads, Demons and Mortals make up most of the relevant threats so it's good enough.
-: feels like the most versatile damage spell available right now; is better to kill your opponent but this deck doesn't struggle at doing that at all.
-: allows a lot of movement and can resolve some tricky situations.
-: against non-Water decks it's a good piece of removal with some Artifact hate on top.
-: already explained in the Magic section, having the 4th copy here feels more consistent.
-: great way to even the playing field against and , probably one of the best collection cards around because you can cast it twice.
-: 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.
-: the deck doesn't run enpough Earth minions, 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.
-: having 2 bodies in one is pretty good right now to remove Wards, however they need too much space.
-: an auto-inclusion if you're running but not worth playing it with only 1 target in the deck.
-, : the deck usually just runs over small creatures and doesn't need help in dealing the fatal blow.
-: Ranged minions are one of the best ways to generate advantage in this deck, but the more you run the less powerful they become since you can only move one of them per turn.
-: definitely a viable choice for the deck and a card I keep going back and forth on, in testing it felt that in this meta the deck needs to be as fast as possible rather than have options for grindy games so they were removed.
-: 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.
-: I'm biased by the fact that I keep drawing it when my opponent is already in DD during testing so I can't make myself like this card at all, on top of that I already feel like I'm running too many Magics.
-: the effect isn't needed often and I didn't need other 4 drops.
-: ends up being just a clunky removal, the deck doesn't struggle against enough to justify it; Ward also made the card significantly worse.
-: 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, there isn't that much Stealth around anymore; could replace .
-: similar to this card, while really good I swear, is too slow for what the deck wants to do in this meta.
-, and : are all great sites I used to run in some of my builds during AL, unfortunately now that the power gap between threshold and no-threshold sites got smaller I can't justify running them anymore; same goes for new sites like and
-: moving it around rarely accomplishes something so I'd rather play more ordinary sites.
-: of all the sites that pay 1 to generate a token this is the only viable one because it's Air so you can play it on turn 1, could be run over and/or .
-: more viable now that the deck doesn't run , but at the same time nobody else does too so Burrowing isn't a very useful ability to have.
-: 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.