An aggressive midrange Air/Fire deck with Evil, and especially Demon, sinergy.
The first build of this deck was made to try and take advantage of 's ability with self-pumping and recursion.
Through testing it became clear that the core of the deck was powerful and consistent on its own, while itself wasn't providing much value, so I started looking for a replacement.
Turns out that ironically has great synergy with Evil minions since they allow you to move it pretty much for free; this gives you better access to positional removal on top of being able to use Evil hate on non-Evil minions.
Having 2 power also comes up frequently, especially because you will find yourself often on enemy sites.
Nonetheless I invite you to adapt the list to any avatar you think might work with it: being composed mostly of simply good cards and having a strightforward plan means it's also very versatile.
For example other avatars I was considering for this deck are and .
The plan is pretty obvious: stick powerful minions to the board and then get rid of any annoying minions with one of your many removals.
Something that might escape at first glance is that a lot of them banish instead of destroying, making this deck able to deal with otherwise annoying Deathrites and recursive minions with ease.
The List
Auras
You probably don't need me to explain how strong is and it works on the majority of the minions of this deck; though I have to admit I didn't have a game where it really shined yet, partly because only takes full advantage of it.
Artifacts
Despite having many more counters in Gothic, is still a powerhouse in decks where the avatar moves around a lot and has always a good target available. More than anything I believe every deck should have answers to both and and this card works like a charm against both.
is one of the reasons to play in my opinion: it's cheap, it's easy to get your target in range and it goes through ward. Unfortunately running an Evil deck means you can rarely Ward your minions, but that hasn't really come up so far.
feels like a must in any deck that plans to interact with the opponent since it allows you to play spefic answers that you can't afford to run in the main deck. I won't discuss my collection because it will take a long time to figure what you really want to have in there; for now I can say that is a must and a way to deal the finishing blow is also nice to have: is probably the spell I've cast the most out of but it's too soon to say if it's necessary or if another spell is able to win the game often enough to take its place.
(and the rest of its cycle) is simply broken, how many I can run has been a deciding factor in the elements I run in all my lists since they came out.
Minions
Probably the major flaw of this deck is that the only 2-drop it runs that you can just slam on turn 2 is ; despite that I don't run the full set because I think Gothic has slowed down the meta, making 2-drops less impactful, and there are already a lot of self-damaging cards. Most other choices are either not Evil, too aggressive for the pace the decks want to play at or both.
While you can't drop it on turn 2, is a crazy 2-drop, offering you both high stats and graveyard hate that can target magic cards as well as minions. Worth saying that even with that I don't see this deck ever beating a classic list, I'm strongly banking on the rest of the meta to make it not viable (at least not with the same strategy it used in AL).
is already a good and versatile minion in other decks, but here it's also a Demon giving you extra synergy. I don't run full copies because it can be awkward to draw early when there's nothing to use its effect on.
is mainly here as a solid 3-drop that can win the game on its own against both and , it can sometime be awkward to position because your avatar can get in the way of the projectile.
trades for free a lot of popular minions, is immune to a lot of common removals and can if needed help in positioning a magic correctly.
isn't a flashy card but it's a Demon and Airborne and Voidwalk are always annoying for your opponent to deal with.
is one of the few good advantage engines in the game and part of the reason this deck is actually pretty comfortable in playing the long game if needed.
4 power for 3, Airborne and a Demon on top of that, is one of the best minions in this deck. Losing 2 lifes each turn isn't that big of a deal if you consider that he's dealing double in return if your opponent allows it to survive.
is another broken minion we're all already familiar with; this deck rarely goes wide enough to make it really pop off but even casting it with 2 minions on the board is 6 extra damage for free (9 if you attack with your avatar too).
is the main reason I was intially running and the deck is themed around Demons. Not pumping itself makes it more fragile and I haven't been fully convinced by it in testing, but I would be running most Demons anyway and there aren't many 4-drops that I think would work well in this deck so for now it will stay.
is a BIG boy and you have a lot of combinations of sites that drop it on turn 3; 6 power is very hard for other decks to anwer without unconditional removal.
has decent stats and is incredibly annoying to deal with, basically working as an additional piece of removal with legs.
Full copies of both and are necessary because of all the self-damaging cards, but I would probably play at least 3 of them regardless because they are just all around good cards.
Only a third of the deck can untap but even without that a 5 power flyer is nothing to scoff at, the deck rarely requires blocking anyway.
and are the slots of the deck that I'm still experimenting with the most: Air and Fire offer a lot of good minions to top your curve and each one has its flaws and merits. The former is basically an extra removal that also offers some card advantage but isn't Evil, the latter helps dealing with Savior and Necromancer and is Evil but it's hard to keep it from damaging yourself. Possible substitutions include , , and .
Magics
is THE reason to play . Being able to hit any minion transforms this card from a situational spell more suited for the collection to the best removal in the game: this card doesn't target and neither does 's ability, meaning you can bypass Stealth, Ward and even Burrowing, Submerge and Voidwalk.With this card you're able to get rid of anything, anywhere, from anywhere, no questions asked.
, together with , helps dealing with a board swarming with minions which the 1-for-1 removals would be unable to answer. If you're still very healthy you can even consider making use of 's 2 power to clear smaller threats.
With all the free movement you get access to comes close to being your 4th and 5th . It can't get around all the stuff does, but you're gonna have to settle.
In this deck will often deal you 3-4 damage, but it's still the most consistent draw spell currently available in the game. The fact that it also doubles as an unavoidable killing blow really pushes this card over the top.
My local meta is generally lacking in answers to Stealthed minions, making a very viable card. If that's not the case for you is probably the next best thing, especially if you're struggling with .
Atlas
This is the section of the deck that's, unexpectedly, proving to be the hardest to balance: most of the sites I believe to be powerful have Genesis abilities, making them not always able to activate. The result is that my Atlas feels filled with copies of and instead of powerful bombs. I'm still trying to understand if the trade-off is worth it.
I'm also running only 11 Ordinary sites with a somewhat threshold-greedy Spellbook so if ends up being as prominent as it was in the past I will need to cut something.
There isn't as much synergy with as in other decks, but it's still a good tool to get favorable trades as well as being a free answer to and .
and are currently in a trial period to determine how much their drawback impacts a match. For now they felt basically free but it's worth noting that I haven't tested much against decks faster than mine and that you're basically forced to mulligan them away to meet thresholds while playing on curve.
, , and all allow you to play your good stuff one turn in advance but can be hard to line up: that's because the first ones end up lacking threshold and you can only cast roughly a third of your deck with the other.
, , , and are all necessary to make sure you hit your thresholds consistently.
If positioned well can make your minions almost impossible to remove for Earth decks while also giving a situational answer to .
is proving to be one of the best sites in Gothic, without mentioning is coincidentally a Demon. I'm still figuring out how many copies you really need in your collection to make the card work, I don't think I ever needed more than 1 so far.
is another card that on paper felt incredible but hasn't been performing too well in practice: in theory it should be basically a better but often there are too many limitations to actually make use of this card. It would be the first on the chopping block if I needed to include more Ordinary sites.
helps shutting down defensive sites, while leaving your Atlas somewhat unaffected since most sites have Genesis abilities.
is basically a free removal considering the deck isn't too mana hungry.
