Primordial Knowledge – Fight For The Crown

With Hex’s first Cosmic Crown Showdown (“CCS”) come and gone and Herofall released, we have a lot to talk about in the world of constructed Hex. The meta has already begun to form, and arguably the most successful deck of the format thus far came out of my testing group for the CCS. I thought it would be interesting this week to discuss our testing and the deck that eventually took the top two spots in the Swiss portion of the CCS.

Battle Agenda

Leading up to the tournament, I tested with the Dragonborn guild, including players such as JadiimJedi, Kindmime, Havoc, Malicus, Isengard, and others. On the surface, Blood and Wild easily appeared to be the stand out shards post Herofall. One of my first experiments was WITH a fairly standard Kagulichu deck with Mightsinger of Ages, Herofall, and Gargalith. While I had moderate success with it, we quickly identified Mono Ruby (a poor match-up for standard Blood/Wild lists) as both an incredibly powerful deck and likely to be incredibly popular deck. Matriarch of Flames, Boltspasm, and Fireball outperformed my expectations and elevated Mono Ruby to a permanent spot in our testing gauntlet. In fact, we often used the deck as a litmus test for other decks – if a deck couldn’t beat Mono Ruby consistently, we knew it wasn’t a deck we wanted to bring to the CCS. One of the most interesting decks we played was a variation of Mono Ruby using Haraza the Incinerator, Royal Falconer, and Plan C for absurd amounts of burst damage. Unfortunately, the list proved too slow to compete with other aggressive decks.

One thing that stood out to me about the Plan C deck was how valuable “surprise” could be in a new format. In an undefined meta, it is much easier to catch players off guard with a lethal combo. Being the master of cheeky tactics that he is, Isengard not only identified Plan C as a “surprise” card during our testing but also called out Gallows Ghasts socketed with Minor Blood Orb of Intimidation and Minor Blood Orb of Frenzy. Combined with Dreadlings, Gallows Ghasts proved much more consistent and deadly than Plan C. Malicus and I began testing an Oberon’s Eulogy deck championed by Bloodspinner Zorath which could make massive Dreadlings with an Eulogy or Dormant One in play. While the deck was weak to constant removal, we didn’t expect too much dedicated constant hate at the CCS and the deck performed well initially. Unfortunately, it too fell often before the power of Angus the Arsonist and his Matriarchs.

Tired of losing to Mono Ruby and not wanting to commit to a deck which could be hated out easily, I resorted to my old Primal Dawn format standby – Wild/Diamond Rutherford Banks. Mightsinger of Ages and Gargalith were powerful new cards which fit perfectly into the deck. While Rune Ear Hierophant wasn’t nearly as powerful without Spellshield, socketing the bunny with Minor Diamond of Wind and Major Wild Orb of Cultivation gave the potentially huge troop evasion as well as a way to ramp into Soul Armaments or Gargalith. I also learned that Eldurathan’s Glory is the literal bananas against certain decks. This approach also had access to the full suite of dinos, making me the favorite against all variations of Ruby. The deck was fine, but was not winning against the Blood decks I expected and struggled against Wild/Sapphire Winter Moon’s Mass Polymorph Dinglers. I was resigned to pilot Banks into the CCS until I realized something.

I was playing Rutherford Banks for its consistency and access to Wild dinos. Its removal was fairly subpar – mostly relying on a couple copies of Solitary Exile and Crocosaur. However, Blood/Wild Kagulichu had access to all these tools as well. The inconsistencies I had experienced with my earlier variations of Blood/Wild were largely driven by the notion that the deck had to play Extinction. Including Extinction inclines a deck toward playing control. Control often falters against the lightning fast Ruby decks since it relies on being reactive to threats. When those threats are killing you consistently on turn four, it’s unlikely you will consistently find the necessary answers over a sample of games. Extinction specifically is poor against Speed and burn – both of which I was expecting in abundance from Ruby.

The Banks deck was attractive because it is a linear ramp deck with troops which match favorably against Ruby’s threats. There was no reason I could not adopt this same strategy in Blood/Wild Kagulichu. My Solitary Exiles were upgraded to Herofalls and I now had access to Vampire King. I tested the list to great success and settled on the following for the CCS.



Rune Ear Hierophant is socketed with Minor Blood Orb of Frenzy and Major Wild Orb of Cultivation

Arborean Rootfather is socketed with Minor Blood Orb of Frenzy and Minor Blood Orb of Intimidation

Gront’s Gift is socketed with the Major Wild Orb of Conjuration





This deck delivered on everything I wanted for the tournament. It had a powerful linear strategy and it had the tools to consistently defeat Ruby. I even got to play a “surprise” card with my singleton Arborean Rootfather socketed with speed and intimidation. The Rune Ear Hierophants were fantastic, serving as Chlorophyllias which doubled as threats. Inquisition in the Reserves gave me an answer to Mass Polymorph Dingler. Gront’s Gift socketed with Major Wild Orb of Conjuration provided inevitability against control decks.

I performed reasonably with the deck, only losing to Eaglov playing Blood/Ruby/Sapphire control (it was quite the brew, based primarily around Vampires and Mad Robomancer) and to JadiimJedi playing an interesting variant of Blood/Wild Kagulichu.

Our Primordial Brew

Having decided to lock down my deck the night before, I missed out on playing the deck my playtest group eventually landed on for the CCS – and what is arguably the current best deck in the format. JadiimJedi and Kindmime piloted this deck to the top two best finishes in the Swiss rounds of the CCS.



Rune Ear Hierophant is socketed with Minor Blood Orb of Intimidation and Major Blood Orb of Sacrifice

Underworld Crusader is socketed with the Minor Wild Orb of Vigil





This deck takes the idea of the deck I played – a proactive, troop oriented Blood/Wild deck – and pushes the limit with Underworld Crusader. Havoc put together the first build with Crusader the morning of the CCS and JadiimJedi and Kindmime refined it over the next two hours to create this beauty. Underworld Crusader brings down the deck’s curve and provides card advantage as removal mitigation. Minor Blood Orb of Intimidation and Major Blood Orb of Sacrifice make Rune Ear Hierophant a must deal with threat. Frequently, this deck can drop a turn two Rune Ear and outrace nearly any opponent. While aggro can give the deck problems, the dinos in the Reserves guarantee you’re never out of options.

We’ve continued to play and refine the deck. With at least four players in the top 20 constructed ladder rankings playing the deck as of me writing this, I feel fairly confident that it is the current best deck of the format. The current list most of us are using is as follows.



Rune Ear Hierophant is socketed with Minor Blood Orb of Intimidation and Major Blood Orb of Sacrifice

Underworld Crusader is socketed with the Minor Wild Orb of Vigil





The most significant change to this build is that we’ve improved consistency and playability by replacing Herofall with Kill and dropping a Vampire King. Packing Mightsinger of Ages and Crocosaur, this deck is a Wild deck at heart. While not difficult to achieve, the double Blood threshold can put you off Crocosaur or delay your Mightsinger buffs by a turn or more. There are also corner cases where killing your own Crusader is a powerful play (say in response to Martyr targeting the Crusader.

This build also vastly improves the Reserves, giving us clean switches against popular match-ups. Let’s take a look at how to reserve with this deck.

VS AGGRO

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