Primordial Knowledge – Mono Sapphire Dreadlings

With HEX’s fourth Cosmic Crown Showdown behind us, it’s time to take a look at what’s been performing well on the ladder and where the meta is headed next. Today we’re going to start right away with a look at a recent popular ladder deck.

Our Primordial Brew

This Mono Sapphire Dreadlings deck has been performing incredibly well on ladder recently.

Warpsteel Shardsworn socketed with Minor Sapphire of Dread

This deck takes an interesting twist on the Dreadling archetype, eschewing the synergy of Ivan Slagpot or most Therroz builds for threat density. Tribunal Magistrate, Commander PROMPT, and Empress of Ice are incredibly powerful and can single-handedly win games. The deck even packs four Copycat to double up on threats! Copycat is especially good on Tribunal Magistrate and Commander PROMPT to push through immense amounts of damage. Copycat and Empress of Ice are our payoffs for playing Mono Sapphire Uzzu. We can hit all five thresholds for both cards on turn four for big turns. Uzzu also lets us exhaust pesky blockers with Empress.

Treacherous Pass is an interesting inclusion, allowing for both multiple Diligence procs on Skittering Cultivator when used with Scrios Coins and for neutering opposing boards of Dreadlings. That said, it is one of the cards I am most keen to cut to shore up this deck’s weaknesses. Despite having fantastic threat density, this deck is fairly soft to Herofall since we play four copies of each threat. Given Blood’s popularity, I’ve found myself constantly cutting the Passes and one of each threat for Verdict of the Ancient Kings and Deny. I think making these mainboard mainstays will significantly improve the deck’s ability to interact – both protecting its threats and having the answer to powerful threats. We could also consider playing Shroud, which has cropped up in at least one Blood/Sapphire Dreadlings deck.

Another big bonus of this deck is the full four copies of both Arcane Focus and Consult the Talon. These cards vastly improve both the deck’s consistency and resiliency, allowing us to find our shard drops or restock after an exchange. This list has shown great promise and I’m excited to fiddle with the specifics to build an even stronger deck.

The Cosmic Ladder

The meta is currently incredibly diverse with an immense amount of room for innovation. Aside from a gaggle of various Blood decks, the ladder has been dominated by the above Mono Sapphire Dreadlings deck, Ruby/Diamond Marshal Josephina Ardent, Blood/Diamond Sockets (as seen in my last article), and other aggro variants like Ruby/Sapphire Morgan McBombus and Ivan Slagpot Redlings. I’ll be curious to see what decks arise to break the current stalemate between aggro and Herofall decks.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to stream this weekend, but follow along on Twitch to see my new expanded schedule starting after April 18th.

See you on the ladder,

Varranis | Twitch | Twitter | Team Fade 2 Karma

Varranis is an analyst for professional gaming organization Fade 2 Karma. He has played countless TCGs over the last eighteen years and brings a unique lens to HEX theory crafting and deck building based on his historical experience. Varranis has numerous tournament wins and top finishes to his name across several popular TCGs and has coached and supported players in world championship level events.

Got any questions? Want to chat with other players? Then discuss this article in our Forums! You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook, or enjoy regular streams on our official Twitch channel.