I hope you like holy crusaders, because this righteous cleric deck is on a divine rampage to dominate all of Entrath! This Wild/Diamond healing archetype has been my favorite type of deck in Hex since Alpha, and all the awesome new tools available to us in PVE makes it better than ever! It’s got everything it needs to live forever, grow its own heroes, and even pull off a miracle every now and then.

Update 7/1/2016: Removed Wind Whisperer(2), Jadiim(2), Eternal Guardian(1), Onslaught(1). Added Ardent Recruiter(3), Mesa Totemist(3).

The Unkillable Coyotle Cleric

Class: Cleric

Race: Coyotle

Level: 9

Style: Stall, Ramp, Buff

This deck is all about healing for very small amounts constantly to neutralize any early-game pressure, stall out the board in the mid-game while you ramp up, and stack up massive buffs from healing synergies to stomp them in the end. It’s incredibly consistent (I haven’t lost Devonshire Keep in weeks), and it has answers to every single strategy archetype in the game, along with a few miracle cards that’ll help you beat the occasional OP encounter that requires some luck.

Resources

Troops

Actions

Equipment

Talents

See the full Talent build here.

Class Power: Pray : [2] Create 2 Blessings in your deck, 0-cost Quick Actions that heal you and draw a card.

: [2] Create 2 Blessings in your deck, 0-cost Quick Actions that heal you and draw a card. Wisdom : Coyotles get 1 extra Talent.

: Coyotles get 1 extra Talent. Children of the Zodiac + Blessed by the Sun : Add 2 Zodiac Blessings to your deck.

: Add 2 Zodiac Blessings to your deck. Affinity: Cleric : Your Clerics get Lifedrain.

: Your Clerics get Lifedrain. Hale : +3 Starting Health.

: +3 Starting Health. Healing Aura : Gain 1 health when you play a Resource.

: Gain 1 health when you play a Resource. Aura Aspect: Good Karma : Blessings move up in your deck each turn.

: Blessings move up in your deck each turn. Unlock: Divine Altar : Add 1 Divine Altar to your deck.

: Add 1 Divine Altar to your deck. Enhance Blessing: Life Essence : All Blessings heal for 2 more.

: All Blessings heal for 2 more. Blessing of the Immortals: Rare chance to get uber-Blessing.

The Bench

Cards to swap in if you don’t have some of the expensive cards in the deck, or are facing a specific threat.

The Strategy

Step 1: Don’t Die

You will win the late game, guaranteed. The only way you’re going to lose is if you let your opponent spiral out of control early, so your top priority in the first few rounds is to just keep things under control. Get a few cheap bodies on the board to dissuade attacks and trade into hyper-scaling threats when you need to. Ideally, though, you won’t actually trade any of your early minions. They’re almost all super-utility studs that help power up your big threats later, so take the punches on your face whenever you can afford to.

Adamanthian Scrivener, Feralroot Archdruid, Ardent Recruiter, and Sight of the Sun are all great plays when you have the time to ramp up safely. But you want to lean on Righteous Paladin, Sterling Starwatcher, and Prophet of the Sun if you need blockers early.

Step 2: Buff Up

Once you’ve avoided the quick death, it’s time to start building up your heroes, mostly through buffs and expanding the support crew of utility minions. You can make opportune attacks during this stage, but only when they’re 100% risk-free (no unspent Resources on your opponent’s side and no troops that can block them successfully). Sometimes you may need to trade away a troop with Lifedrain just get the heal effect to buff up your key players, but you should do that on defense whenever possible to make sure you control the outcome and prevent incoming damage.

Ghost Howler and Forever’s Child are key healing engines that you should aim to get on board during this stage, while Feralroot Archdruid and Sight of the Sun keep your Resources maxed out as you build towards the big bombs.

Step 3: Snipe Them

While you’re still buffing up, you’re going to need to eliminate big threats that hit the board that you simply can’t answer yet. Things like Sweltering Zombie or a Rot Touch Ghoul with Swiftstrike are the most common problems I run into inside Devonshire Keep.

Hopefully you haven’t had to use your removal before now, but Diamond gives us all the best cheap options: Repel, Inner Conflict, and Solitary Exile.

You’ve also got a great host of air defense with Sterling Starwatcher, Spearcliff Cloud Knight (+equipment!). Mesa Totemist will give you some great buff tricks for removing targets when blocking and attacking!

Step 4: Crush Them

As soon as you’ve got at least one cleric buffed to demigod status, it’s time to start swinging. The AI may let you through for one or two big hits to the face, but they’ll start chump-blocking pretty quickly. Use this as a form of soft-removal early on for things like Seed Pods and other utility minions you don’t want to use premium removal on. If you swing with enough power, they’ll block.

In the end, you’ll either win by hero or host: a Righteous Paladin or Mesa Totemist buffed to 20+ that simply can’t be stopped or a swarm of minions fueled by your insane card advantage and blobbers like Forever’s Child and buffed to insane levels by Ghost Howler or Eternal Guardian.

No matter the composition, your army will be bigger than whatever they got, so swing away and grab the gold!

Tips and Tricks

This guy is your go-to hero, and the reason I built this deck in the first place. He’ll win more games than any other card, and it’s impossible to overstate how important his Sigil of Grace equipment is. That Trinket heals you every time a Righteous Paladin takes damage, which then causes the Paladin to grow in response. With it, the Righteous Paladin will single-handedly beat the final two encounters in Devonshire Keep (which frequently ping everything for 1 damage). It also makes sure that the Paladin continues growing out of control when it starts to trade, and is a nice perk against Swiftstrike minions, who will cause it to grow before it dishes its attack back. Protect this troop with your life and it’ll return the favor.

Oh, and he’s BFFs with your Healing Aura Talent, which pretty much guarantees one buff every single turn.

Take everything I just said about Righteous Paladin and apply it to Mesa Totemist too. I didn’t understand the value of this card right away. It’s buff effect happen every time you heal, not just once per turn! Having Empower gives you much-needed flexibility to play it early or late. Once your healing engines are in place, this is swinging as a 10+ Swiftstrike, Lifedrain troop every turn! Not only that, but its equipment will buff every other cleric on your board permanent (not just for the turn).

Whenever you need removal on defense, try to combo this with a quick heal. You can get the AI to swing at you, declare blockers and then suddenly boost its attack and give it Swiftstrike. It feels good every time.

The ultimate combo of ramp and healing! This card was made for this deck and he shines brightest when you use its ability as a surprise buff during combat. Combat buffs are the best way to trick the AI, which is often willing to opt into trades that look good on paper. And because it’s harder for this deck to heal during your opponent’s turn, save this for your attacks if you can — it’ll be a great surprise that should let you gobble up a couple minions each time.

This is the most fun Talent in the whole game. It adds 2 Blessing cards into your deck that change with the real-world Zodiac! All of them are great: 0-cost Quick Actions that draw a card and do something else like give you a Thunderbird, another turn, or a bunch of health.

The best thing about Zodiac Blessings, though, is that they’re affected by everything that boosts your normal Cleric Blessings (from the Class Power). That means (with our Talent choices) they move up in your deck every turn, heal you every time they’re cast, and get duplicated by the Divine Altar!

And speaking of that sweet altar of holiness, let’s talk about the Divine Altar. This is one of the hail-mary cards we put in the deck that’s guaranteed to win us the game if we draw it. This deck is built entirely around Clerics and life-gain, and Divine Altar essentially doubles both! Duplicating any Blessing you play gives you a huge health buffer and big card advantage (since each Blessing draws you a card and heals you in addition to its other effect), and doubling your Clerics guarantees board control!

When you have a Divine Altar and two Resources in your starting hand, the enemy has 3 turns to beat you. After that, the board is yours and they’re never getting it back.

The only thing better than receiving huge heals is being completely invincible — and that’s what the Eternal Guardian does for you and every troop in your army. This deck has great tools to grow your Resource pool quickly, and this is the big reward you’re working toward. You’ll only get to play him in a small percentage of your games, but playing him is the same thing as winning. Once he’s on the board, your victory is inevitable.

This card is amazing. It has the best art in the game and will absolutely flood your board with troops. Even better: the Orchins she make get stats equal to the amount of health you gained the turn that they were created. You’ll get Orchins all the way from 1/1 to 50/50. By this point in the guide, you should already realize how powerful that is, but I wanted to make special mention that her effect happens at the end of EVERY turn, not just your turns. So try to save a heal or two for your opponent’s turn if you can afford to.

If this deck isn’t your style, be sure to check out all of my Hex Deck guides to find one you like!