Welcome to Ponza Bonanza (Bonanza pronounced like Ponza)
In this deck we're focusing on site destruction. maxed out on almost every site destruction aura; salt the earth, castle's ablaze, hamlet's ablaze (this one is at effectively 8 because of common sense).
How to prioritize sites to destroy:
1. determine how many elements your opponent is on
2. determine in which element they have more removal
3. focus on destroying that element
4. if your opponent is on 1 element, destroy sites that are directly next to yours and work on keeping them off of their big mana/threshold spells
5. if against 3+ elements, destroy what ever is giving them the most value, like tri- or quad- sites
5. if against elementalist, let them have fun, they deserve it.
What the optimal opening hand for this deck includes:
sites providing 2 earth threshold
frontier settlers
With those you get 4 mana turn 3 after going into Pathfinder and get to be ahead on mana for most likely the rest of the game. When your in pathfinder, pick one side of the realm and snake your way up it. You can also work on the other side as well to encroach on the opponent while destroying sites and playing your own.
Some issues with the deck:
A. games go long. this is a site control list, you have small guys most of the time. one of my first tests against someone with a more meta strategy went on for an hour and a half. this is not the deck for late night locals.
B. the majority low power minions. there's usually enough removal in the list, especially repeatable with archimago in the side.
C. almost all of the removal is land site based. if your local meta is predominantly water, run some droughts or other tech pieces for that.
D. dead draws. it hasn't come up much so far, but there are a lot of game states where any individual card could be a dead draw with nothing that it can do. you should adjust the deck list depending on your personal luck.
our collection avatars all serve some sort of purpose.
pathfinder, ironclad, archmagio, and deathspeaker are among the usual crowd. you know how they work, pathfinder for early sites, archmagio and deathspeaker for recasts and second effects, ironclad for DD, all standard. the other options of sorcerer, necromancer, and flamecaller, all serve different ideas. sorcerer for extra card draw when we get multiple chances, necromancer for extra bodies when we get multiple turns. flamecaller is for a DD finisher since we're in fire, so if your continually in a winning position don't deathspeaker all your fire minions so the ability can work well.
the other collection cards are with silver bullet, a heal spell, board clear, and searing truth for another DD finisher that gets around ironclad/harp, doesn't get around amulet though, find dispel, bury or cave-in, you'll be fine.