I tend to play a lot of games vs. the AI, and whenever I brew a deck that can win fairly consistently against the Hard AI I feel like I've got a winner. This is one such deck. Enjoy, and feel free to leave feedback!

How to play this deck

This is a very aggressive deck. You're looking to take control of the board early and never let it go. You're aiming to drop a 6+ cost threat on turns 3-6 and let it do the work to keep you ahead and inching ever-closer to victory.

Mulligans

Using the Mulligan feature is absolutely necessary for more consistent victories. A bad hand will have you too far behind in tempo before you can really get going. A great starting hand contains:

One or more "ramp" spells from the following list (in order of priority):

Skull Shrine

Power Trip

Fulmination Conduit

1-2 Threats (in order of priority):

Cannon Automaton or Top Reaver Thea

Solemn Giant

Iron Ogre

I'm not really sure on the orderings between the pairs, but I've definitely found Cannon/Thea to be better opening draws than the Ogre or the Giant.

Individual Scroll highlights

In which I gush about some very key cards and their special cases.

Skull Shrine

Goodness is this card amazing. Playing this on turn 3 lets your turns 4-6 become:

Turn 4: Cannon Automaton / Violent Dispersal / Thunder Surge / Solemn Giant + Tick once

Turn 5: Iron Ogre

Turn 6: Top Reaver Thea

Later in the game it's often thrown away, but it can also be a great filler card to make sure you're using all your Energy now and giving you more for later, especially in conjunction with a Tempest Reaver

Tempest Reaver

Rarely if ever what you want to see early on. If you're falling behind they make "cheap", resilient blockers in front of your more powerful threats. Later in the game they allow you a chance to split; dropping a Tempest Reaver on the opposite side of the board can be awkward to defend when it can potentially snipe a full-health idol.

Blessing of Haste, Fury, Iron Whip

These cards have been a more recent addition and they're doing some amazing work. They help screw up combat timing and letting you sneak victories before they're put out of reach. Iron Whip in particular is notable for helping Thea hit a new breakpoint to deal 8/4/2, which is often the difference between a full clear of a row or leaving one up in the back/middle. These sneaky tricks can often flood your hand when you don't want them (Blessing in particular, needing another card to sacrifice for often little gain) but they're a nice tool to help put yourself over the edge.

Notably Notorious

In which we talk about cards that might seem great at first but haven't held up so far.

Solemn Giant

I really like this card in a lot of other decks. He's a versatile finisher in many slow and steady decks. When you're trying to get going quickly, however, it's usually among my least favorite cards. Often it's just going be the same as Violent Dispersal each turn without spending a card, but more often you'll be doing that in to creatures you just don't care about.

If you manage to sneak him well ahead of the curve, he's great. He's still great for when games do eventually get stalled. He's just not that great in an ideal curve.

Automata Forge

I started playing with this deck by adding everything that ramped and everything that got better with more Energy than I'd know what to do with. A lot of the other cards that were Energy sinks left quickly because they weren't all that fantastic. This one's stuck around, being good enough at eating damage to stick around. It's a purely defensive tool, more often than not, with the potential to spawn a few extra blockers while you try to stabilize.