This is a thematic four-element deck that seeks to balance flavor and viability.
It’s primarily made up of cards from Arthurian Legends, but includes other sets to make it somewhat viable in my local meta. To help give some consistency to playing 27 Unique minions across four elements, it otherwise leans into with Mortal synergies. How does it win? Capital G Good minions. With so many disparate Uniques, each game plays out differently. It's both its greatest weakness and greatest strength, and it's a lot of fun.
Why Savior?
[[Savior]] works for two reasons:
Stickiness: Playing a 4-element deck requires a lot of support to meet or cheat threshold. If we're investing so much to get these Sirs and Dames in play, giving them Ward helps ensure we get mileage out of them.
Flavor: while early Arthurian legends focus on supernatural feats of heroism, later Arthurian romances are caught up in Christian chivalric ideals of purity; the greatest knights, once defined by might (Lancelot), are later defined by purity (Galahad); a fancy goblet in an early telling becomes the Holy Chalice in a later one; and the Celtic wild man Myrddin becomes the magician Merlin, fathered by a demon and redeemed through baptism. The Savior feels on-brand for later Arthurian romance.
Why not [[Elementalist]] or [[Templar]]?
is a natural choice to help meet thresholds. However, not only are there other options to meet thresholds (, , ), we'd want to play many of them anyway to cast Sirs and Dames, since all have a double-threshold for one or more elements. With cards like and , there are lots of options to cheat—rather than meet—thresholds to cast Sirs and Dames.
makes our knights cheaper. In contrast, asks us to wait for the excess 1 to ward them. But beyond the inherent defensive access to Ward, the deck has solid coverage in the early game to buy us time— protects itself, and Foot Soldiers from Villages are cheap and efficient. gives us a defender and draws a site to keep the mana coming. provides explosive early-game threats, allowing us to summon a warded Sir or Dame on turn two.
Summoning Knights, Sirs, and Dames
Plan A: Cheating Threshold
is the most consistent way to overcome thresholds. Playing it early ensures we're in the game, so searching for one in a mulligan is often the first order of business. Of course, relying on is not only risky, it also comes with a restriction: needing to summon there makes it predictable, and Sirs and Dames are slow to respond if we need them elsewhere in the realm.
cheats threshold and provides 4 (or 2 if we're sacrificing it the same turn we cast it).
is a cantrip that cheats threshold.
cheats threshold, mana cost, and tax by and . The Ordinary Mortals available for it are and . Using it to summon a warded 5- or 6-cost minion on turn 2 makes for an explosive start, but it has drawbacks: needing to spend an extra card to play a card, and it's a dead draw in the late game.
Plan B: Meeting Threshold
, , , and all provide . We can include on this list, since getting is a sure bet. Having one of these sites provides the necessary threshold for , , and , but they're primarily foundations for the other sites below.
's Genesis provides . Alongside one of the three- or four-element sites above, we'll meet the threshold for any Sir or Dame.
trades 1 for , , , or . Alongside one of the three- or four-element sites above, we'll meet the threshold for most Sirs or Dames for 1, and all for 2. Without those three- and four-element sites, it's still handy for getting the one odd element needed for , , , , and most of the and magics in our collection.
similarly fixes one odd threshold most in need.
Quirks, Considerations, and Limitations
Charge
interacts well with minions with Charge. We can pay 1 to Ward a summoned minion with Charge, spend that Ward to attack safely, and re-apply Ward for 1—or skip the first Ward if it isn't needed. , , and Sir Yvain's can all take advantage of this dynamic. imparts it to all nearby minions, and quickens our otherwise slow game plan.
Removal
Minions
and are our go-to minion removal. They reliably cover most minions on our sites, and effectively ignore Ward and Stealth. Of course, they don't destroy minions with Burrow, and without any minions with Burrow of our own, they can be especially tough to deal with. and are hard to ignore. In those cases, we're limited to in the spellbook. In the collection, can tempt a nearby burrowed minion to take a step onto the surface. banishes Spirits and Demons. In the collection we have and .
Artifacts
doubles as artifact removal, as does . gives us access to , , and .
Auras
In the main deck, is the only way to remove Auras. In the Collection, there's .
Sites
and effectively brick this deck. Pray to the Savior that a can ride his to them. Otherwise, we'll have to get lucky with an .
Dealing a Death Blow
Our spellbook is limited on ways to easily close the game. None of our minions have Airborne or +X Movement to chase avatars down, and only shoots projectiles. Thankfully, access to four elements opens our options to spells in our Collection. Using a for or are our best options here. can also finish the game.
Cards That Say "You Lose"
: If it doesn't beat us outright, or might be our only hope.
and : Our best hope is for or .
: Realistically, this card sees little play and its impact wouldn't be too different from other board wipes.