{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iTuDvk45Qk}}

Currently testing and updates (aug-26)

You can now check my performance and latest games on sorceryrec.com!

Won two small leagues in july:

• First one: 11-1 playing against Imposter , Waveshaper , Sorcerer , Necromancer , Archimago , Deathspeaker , Geomancer
• Second one: 7-2 playing against Geomancer , Pathfinder , Necromancer , Necromancer , Enchantress, Persecutor

In:

• Platz tech

Out:

• Michael
• Toolboxes and other artifacts
• Some spot removal and Auras

About the deck

This is a control deck built around Archimago, aiming to outlast the opponent, dominate the mid/late game, and win through inevitability rather than early pressure.

With the Gothic card pool and the 60/30/10 deck structure, the deck leans heavily into:

• Efficient interaction
• Redundancy
• High spell density
• Flexible Atlas and Spellbook that adapt to matchups

The goal is simple: survive early, stabilize the board, then lock the game down until the opponent runs out of meaningful plays.

Strengths

• Excellent late game
• Strong card advantage through Archimago's ability + several ways to draw cards
• High flexibility
• Very good against midrange and slower strategies

Weaknesses

• Low minion count
• Can be vulnerable to explosive early aggression (chargers, Jihad, Summoning Sphere)
• Requires careful sequencing and resource management
• Misplays are heavily punished
• Can struggle if forced into low-resource games early

This deck rewards patience and precision.

Core strategy

DON'T BE AFRAID TO MULLIGAN.

Optimize the position of your sites and units.

Use your cantrips just to draw cards.

Chain your tutors.

Use Archimago's ability.

Ok this is a control deck, but let's go more in depth and divide the main strategy into 4 separate phases:

Crisis → Control → Pivot → Win

Crisis Phase

The world is on fire and you need to survive.

• Start the game by greeting your opponent (important!) and assuming your Avatar is already in trouble
• Mulligan according to your opponent's Avatar and try your best to predict their main strategy
• Buy as much time as possible in the first 3 turns.

A well placed defensive site can prevent your opponent from attacking you for 1-3 turns. Sites are your best early game answers to threats:

• Pebbled Paths - really strong against aggro, shutting down chargers
• Perilous Bridge - good against every deck, placing this on turn 2 directly above Archimago's starting position forces your opponent to take a detour and usually buys you 2+ turns
• Gnome Hollows - same as above, but you can also play this as your first site if you have another defensive site in hand, as it can prevent an early Aino or from being attacked by a Battlemage or minions controlled by Interrogator later in the game.

Manage your draws and plan ahead:

• Usually we want to draw 3 spells before drawing sites again BUT
• Don't be afraid to draw sites for the first couple turns if you didn't get any defensive ones in your first 3 + mulligan
• Remember: life is a resource! Don't be afraid to take some damage here and there, don't try to kill everything, you won't have the mana nor the cards to do so
• Use your Bury, Lightning Bolt, to handle relevant minions
• Common Sense can be used to tutor a specific answer early, but ideally we want to chain tutor for another common sense with spare mana to fill out our graveyard OR tutor for an early Landmass to ramp
• Unless you have a Root Spider in hand, you're probably handling one minion at a time, so your goal here is to be patient and reach 5 mana to proceed to the Control Phase

Control Phase

This phase usually starts when we hit 5+ mana and after our first "crowd control" effect resolves, which can be one of the following:

• Poison Nova - don't hesitate to kill your own minions, position yourself and kill as much enemy minions as you can
• Earthquake - same as above, and always be aware of possible site placement manipulation. Be mindful of the cost. This can be done defensively or aggressively (Smokestacks of Gnaak)
• Chains of Prometheus - at least -1 minion to care about every turn
• Fields of Camlann - is kind of a pain to achieve early on, but if you do, this site wipes the board for 0 mana and you're able to follow it up with a meaningful play

After that the opponent might be left with little to no minions on board, or even running out of gas, but be prepared for game changing spells and keep managing your game plan:

• You're at 5+ mana, and so is your opponent
• Evaluate what you have in hand vs. what threats you need to deal with
• Don't rush! You don't need to get to that 8 mana + 1 site to cast Craterize asap (or at all really)
• Usually it's best to settle at 6 mana and draw as much spells as you need to stabilize the board first
• Be mindful of opponents trying to site lock and stiffle you
• Be ready to counter or play around hate sites (River of Blood, Haystack, Kor Crematory, Mismanaged Mortuary, Funeral Pyre, Garden of Eden, Bureau of Occult Control)
• Try your best to avoid being put at Death's Door. Once you're at DD, there's no turning back and it's gonna get exponentially harder to win the match
• Look out for Divine Healing, the amount of healing provided can be overwhelming with multiple copies. Don't forget about the cost
• Morgana le Fay, Grandmaster Wizard, Browse, Blink and self mill cards like Cemetery Rats and Shallow Grave help you dig your spellbook
• Keep controlling the board and chaining Common Sense. As always, look for specific targets when needed, but the last one most often should be Border Militia (see Pivot Phase)

Don't overdo it:

• Pay attention to the time limit - usually 45 min in tournaments
• Try not to waste time, be wary of your opponents too and remind them there's a time limit (politely, because they are also thinking hard at this point)
• Always ask yourself "who is the beatdown?"
• Look for windows to pivot and proceed to the next phase

Pivot Phase

It's very important that you understand this is somewhat of a trial and error phase, and you might succeed and proceed to the win or even return back to the Control Phase:

• Border Militia - helps us defend very well but also is one of our main tools to pivot from a reactive playstyle to a more proactive one. When combined with Archimago's ability, it is possible to create a surprising amount of Foot Soldier tokens that can turn the game upside down VERY quickly.
• Ring of Morrigan - I don't know what to say, this card is just great and depending on what you have in hand + graveyard you can wipe the board while recovering to full health. Be weary of Swap
• Lightning Bolt - cast and recast to deal high amounts of damage. Searchable with any Common Sense left in our graveyard

Win Phase

You have become inevitable: overwhelm them with damage and win.

• Craterize - used to be the main win condition but now with a 60-card spellbook there are games we just don't draw this elite. Still, you can use it to deal 10 damage to your opponent's avatar, probably wiping their board and leaving them at DD (or close to it), just to finish them off next turn recasting Craterize with Archimago's ability. Don't forget you need to have 1 site in hand to be discarded. Also, be aware that experienced opponents might move their Avatar closer to you as the game progresses, so you have to be careful when casting this spell.
• Major Explosion - redundancy, works as a mini Craterize and is castable 1-2 turns earlier
• Border Militia - as stated above, the amount of tokens this deck can produce is insane and can win you the game out of nowhere. Position your tokens in a way that your opponent is in check at DD
• Ring of Morrigan - can be used to quickly drain your opponents life and is a great finisher
• Lightning Bolt, Arcane Barrage - extra ways to kill an opponent at DD

Opening hand & Mulligans

What You Want to See

• At least one of the defensive sites
• A stable mana setup - you must be able to cast your early spells, so consider their thresholds
• Low-cost removal
• Root Spider
• Common Sense and/or Landmass

Hands with a clear plan for the first 2-3 turns are usually keeps.

What to Mulligan

• Hands with no early interaction - ship away any sites in order to dig for defensive ones
• Hands that rely on expensive spells or 3+ threshold spells - Don't worry, there's a lot of shuffling, you'll see that Morgana le Fay or Craterize again. Hopefully.
• Hands that lack consistency - sites with or spells in hand, etc

As a rule:

Focus on your defensive sites, they alone should provide you enough time to develop your game plan, everything else you can get is a bonus. Surviving the early game is the main priority.

Matchups

As a rule of thumb: DO NOT place your sites in a big T during early/mid game!

vs Aggro

• Mulligan aggressively for early answers
• Avoid greedy decisions
• Be careful using life as a resource
• Stabilization is more important than anything else
• A single source of healing can win you the game

Site placement:

Avoid multiple contact points and try to funnel as much as possible to make good use of your Root Spider, mass removal and defensive sites. They usually can't afford placing more than 5-6 sites.

Small Block

|_________|_________|___S_____|_________|_________|

|_________|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|_________|

Z Pattern

|_________|_________|___S_____|_________|_________|

|_________|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

Inverted T

|_________|_________|___S_____|_________|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|

vs Midrange

• Try and make 2-for-1 trades or ramp early on
• Save removals for high-impact threats like Lord of Lies
• You are favored if the game goes long

Site placement:

Kinda the same mindset as against aggro, but you don't need to be as tight. They might go for 8+ sites and try to lock you, so plan your site placement making sure that you can absolutely get to at least 8*

Small Block (might be riskyif not playing first*)

|_________|_________|___S_____|_________|_________|

|_________|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|_________|

Z Pattern

|_________|_________|___S_____|_________|_________|

|_________|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

Big Block

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

vs Control

• Mulligan aggressively for card advantage
• Ask yourself "who is the beatdown?" every single turn
• Plan your game and take advantage of Archimago recasting key cards and win conditions
• Resource management, sequencing and card advantage decide the game
• Watch out for timeouts

Site placement:

I find it's always good to develop you site placement forward against control. If you happen to draw into Landmass, try to lock them out

Big Block

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|_________|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|_________|

Aggressive

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|

|_________|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|___S_____|

|_________|_________|___S_____|_________|_________|

vs Mirror

Archimago is getting some attention again! So be prepared as if playing against control but also be careful when facing the now popular lists:

• If you win the roll, be the starting player. Usually the game turns into some sort of resource race
• They can and will try to hurt your mana base or even site lock you. Landmass + Sinkhole can be devastating
• Uno reverse card: Try and site lock them!
• Mulligan aggressively for Landmass, Common Sense and other things that help you develop your board or increase amount of cards in graveyard
• Craterize and Major Explosion might be keeps
• Feast for Crows naming Craterize, Border Militia, Divine Healing, etc
• Ersatz Platz for Funeral Pyre
• DO NOT underestimate their token generation and damage output
• Deal with the Omphalos!